Publishing this month, Rachel Adams‘s Raising Henry: A Memoir of Motherhood, Disability, and Discovery gives a deeply moving and honest account of welcoming a baby born with Down syndrome. Adams, a professor of English and American studies, is also director of the Future of Disability Studies Project at Columbia University. In the interview below,
Given the failure of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Doha round of tariff cuts, the world economy has remained partly closed: agriculture is protected and one cannot freely sell industrial goods to developing nations. After the economic temblors of 2008, the prospect of American and European decline captures headlines and
August 25, 2013 is the 95th birthday anniversary of the brilliant Leonard Bernstein. A charismatic and versatile musician, Bernstein attained international super-star status in his lifetime. The Leonard Bernstein Letters, edited by Nigel Simeone, reveals the breadth of Bernstein’s musical interests, his constant struggle to find the time to compose, his
Today’s raging partisan battles over climate policy and the Keystone XL pipeline are just the latest examples of a deeper debate about our future: Are we headed for a world of scarce resources and environmental catastrophe as environmentalists believe, or will market forces and technological innovation yield greater prosperity? In
Olivia Gall— A few weeks ago, I visited a restaurant where an employee acted very rudely towards me. Fuming, I went home and wrote a scathing Yelp review about the establishment. Satisfied that justice had been served and that the entire online community could be made aware of the horrible
“Thus a ruler can imprison a person’s body, but the spirit is incapable of being imprisoned. It was this spiritual leverage that Gandhi fastened on to, and we fasten on to in Gandhi. It was with this power that Gandhi faced the might of an empire.” There are hundreds of
When Americans come upon a social arrangement they want to preserve, they do not alter their behavior to fit their values; they alter their values to fit their behavior. They change what it means to be an American… With intensely divisive issues like voting rights, immigration policy, and the war
In Time No Longer: Americans After the American Century Patrick Smith explores America’s need for a new perspective and self-image. Smith argues that while old myths and stories once motivated and defined America and what it meant to be American, that these myths cannot drive the nation forward any longer. Instead
Arcadian America, written by Aaron Sachs, takes a look back at nineteenth-century garden cemeteries and relates them to our current moment of environmental crisis. Throughout, Arcadian America presents the reader with a great deal of historical facts and context, which Sachs effortlessly blends with cultural criticism and personal memoir to
Calvinism: A History explores the social and political developments that enabled Calvinism to establish a global presence. Author D. G. Hart traces the political and religious circumstances that first created space for Reformed churches in Europe and later contributed to Calvinism’s expansion around the world. The book raises important questions