Simona Segre Reinach (Venice): Fashion and National Identity: Interactions between Italians and Chinese in the Global Fashion Industry. The entirety of Greil Marcus' famous 1970 "What is this shit?" review prefigures the sense of profound, disturbed wonder in the best of Marcus’ criticism. A review of Structure and Randomness: Pages from Year One of a Mathematical Blog by Terence Tao. From Psychology Today, why do so many self-help books sound the same? From The Root, an article on Haiti's "orphans" and the transracial adoption dilemma. Christian imperialism in Haiti?: An article on missionaries, theo-tourism, and the invasion of the Global South. From Salon, an article on JD Salinger, a "recluse" with an ugly history of women. Nerd porn of the day: "We love xkcd": Neil Gaiman and a bevy of Internet celebs sing a tribute to our favorite Web comic. Bryan Curtis on the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue: An intellectual history. From The Tablet, Wieseltier vs. Sullivan: Your guide to the brawl. You can’t handle the truth: David Nutt set out to determine which drugs are actually the most dangerous — and discovered that the answers are, well, awkward. Failing the IQ Test: A review of Intelligence and How to Get It by Richard E. Nisbett. The shop that gives: Where would we be without our cafes? Deep Doo-Doo: A review of The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters by Rose George; The Last Taboo: Opening the Door on the Global Sanitation Crisis by Maggie Black and Ben Fawcett; and The Culture of Flushing: A Social and Legal History of Sewage by Jamie Benidickson.
