Books
Briefly Noted
“Moderation,” “Via Ápia,” “Misbehaving at the Crossroads,” and “The Key to Everything.”
What We Miss When We Talk About the Racial Wealth Gap
Six decades of civil-rights efforts haven’t budged it, and the usual prescriptions—including reparations—offer no lasting solutions. Have we been focussing on the wrong things?
The First Time America Went Beard Crazy
A sweeping new history explores facial hair as a proving ground for notions about gender, race, and rebellion.
What Will Become of the C.I.A.?
The covert agency has long believed in the power of knowing one’s enemy. But these days the threats are coming from above.
A Memoir of Working-Class Britain Wrings Playfulness from Pain
The writer Geoff Dyer unravels a tale in which the intricacies of model airplanes and the comic horrors of school lunch mingle with something darker.
What The New Yorker Was Reading in 1925
Touted in our first issue: a love-crazed soldier, scheming septuagenarians, an Anglo-French chastity plot, and a suspected nymphomaniac with a taste for fast cars.
Is Technology Really Ruining Teens’ Lives?
In recent years, an irresistibly intuitive hypothesis has both salved and fuelled parental anxieties: it’s the phones.
Briefly Noted
“Is a River Alive?,” “I’ll Tell You When I’m Home,” “The Doorman,” and “Among Friends.”