Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky — The First Man Who Refused to Get Better
Dostoevsky wrote this in 1864. The Underground Man has been living rent-free in my head…
Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathanael West: The Myth of Saving Anyone
Nathanael West wrote Miss Lonelyhearts in 1933. It is 185 pages. It feels like a…
Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow — The Immigrant Who Built the Machine the Rest of Us Live Inside
A review of Ron Chernow’s landmark biography of Alexander Hamilton — the illegitimate Caribbean orphan who out-hustled every Founding Father and built the America we actually live in.
Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes — The First Man Honest Enough to Say What Power Really Is
Most philosophers dress up power. They give it noble clothes — natural law, divine right,…
Grassland by Richard Manning — What We Buried Under the Breadbasket
A review of Richard Manning’s Grassland — the story of North America’s vanishing prairies, what we destroyed to build industrial agriculture, and why it matters now.
Screen by Jessica Helfand — She Saw the Wreckage Before the Crash
Twenty-three essays. Two hundred pages. Published in 2001, when most people were still calling the…
