A Critic at Large
The New York Shooting That Defined an Era
On a mild December day in 1984, a man named Bernie Goetz shot four Black teen-agers on a subway. The incident galvanized the city. Are we still living in its wake?
How Consent Can—and Cannot—Help Us Have Better Sex
The idea is legally vital, but ultimately unsatisfying. Is there another way forward?
Is the Dictionary Done For?
The print edition of Merriam-Webster was once a touchstone of authority and stability. Then the internet brought about a revolution.
How Monsters Went from Menacing to Misunderstood
For most of human history, monsters were repugnant aberrations, breaches of the natural and moral order. What’s behind our relentless urge to humanize them?
What Do We Want from Our Child Stars?
Adoration, exploitation, and the strange afterlife of being celebrated too soon.
The Hunt for the World’s Oldest Story
From thunder gods to serpent slayers, scholars are reconstructing myths that vanished millennia ago. How much further can we go—and what might we find?
Pan-African Dreams, Post-Colonial Realities
Two new books, on Kwame Nkrumah’s promise and Idi Amin’s tyranny, capture the soaring hopes and bitter aftermath of Africa’s age of independence.
Where the Battle Over Free Speech Is Leading Us
Doxing, deplatforming, defunding, persecuting, firing, and sometimes killing—all are part of an escalating war over words. What happens next?
The Autocrat of English Usage
Henry W. Fowler believed he knew how sentences should read—and his judgments have shaped The New Yorker’s style for a century.
What to Make of the Mother Who Made You
A new memoir by Arundhati Roy, about a formidable matriarch, joins a host of recent books in which daughters reckon with mothers who are too much, not enough, or both at once.