America 250
Never since that first Fourth of July have we been so divided between wannabe monarchists and republicans. Perhaps what we assumed would be progress has turned out to be a circle.
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American Christianity’s War with Itself
“Who do people say that I am?” Jesus asks, and everyone has a different answer. King, prophet, peasant, rebel, son, shepherd, rabbi, redeemer—to this day, Jesus is what each of us needs him to be.
Reaching Out to Connect with a Gallant Voice from a War-Ravaged Land
As I was being vetted, administrators asked what I would do if my Ukrainian partner wanted to talk about hardships and loss. I said I could listen. What else could I do?
Modern African Literature Confronts the Constraints of the Global Politics of Reading
Contemporary writers do not inherit Chinua Achebe’s legacy as a neutral resource. They inherit it as a canon that has already been institutionalized, already been absorbed into systems of evaluation and circulation that reward familiarity. To write within this tradition is to encounter a set of formal and linguistic expectations that are both enabling and constraining.
How We Approach Understanding Each Other When We Speak Real Words, Not Classroom Jargon
One day, our professor asked the class whether we still believed a pure, just, and equal society was possible. I said “no” loudly without thinking, and I meant it. It is a dangerous place to go for me.
How, After World War II, Vietnam Became the Graveyard of Empires
Other books examine the same subject, though none are quite the same sort of synthesis this book is, a massive history that reads a bit like a massive novel. Indeed, as the accumulation of detailed narrative mounts, the reader finds it more unreal and unfocused, as if, as George Orwell said, in Asia, the closer and more finely tuned the view, the vaguer it gets.
William F. Buckley, Grand Impresario of American Conservatism
Journalist Sam Tanenhaus has provided a warts-and-all look at the most consequential figure of modern conservatism who never held office. Despite its doorstop-worthy length, Tanenhaus’s book offers a masterful example of how to capture a man and his era.
Board Games and Human Nature
Like comic books and animation, board games became more artful, more expensive, more interesting to adults. For millennia, games had been folk culture, passed down for generations, the play communal. Now they are a craft, sometimes even an art, designed and authored, often with a deliberately niche appeal.
Winning and Losing at the Great Game of Intimacy
What to call this Anton Chekhov, whom I first encountered in 1988? The Master, perhaps—of vision, decency, modesty, and industry, and, one might hope, in the old game of love.
Once Every Seventeen Years
The game here took place on several dimensions. It was, on one hand, a game with time—in the right place at the right moment—and on the other, with fish and bugs, in that moment. Once every seventeen years, maybe this might happen. But it has also become a game with memory, and with writing—and now, with technology.
Searching for Luck in Las Vegas Playing the Same Game on Two Different Floors
At the slot machine that night, I also had no control. I even lost my money. I did not feel so anxious. But at the trade show, I kept worrying more, trying harder, all the effort to feel in control, but did the odds change a lot? Maybe not.
The Difference Between Making Promises and Keeping Them
The man asking if I am a Christian is a Puerto Rican chef living in Dallas, someone I met in the strange expanse of the internet, specifically within a Chinese gaming platform called Age of Origins.
Father and Child Reunion
In the process of traveling with my youngest daughter to five races, I learned that my crude assumptions about the nature of Formula 1 drivers were wrong and that my daughter was an F1 authority to be reckoned with.
Līlā
Defending a liberal arts education is equivalent to celebrating līlā/ play. Enabling and encouraging līlā is more than just desirable, it is necessary. My thesis is thus līlā/ play is the intellectual disposition that enables epistemic humility, which in turn is the central goal of a liberal arts education.
The Woodson Boys
To become good at chess is to master skills that would allow one to succeed in a perfect world. And to lose sight of that world, to forget to dream of how things could be, is to lose a great deal, even if it is in this world that we will always be mired.
Editor’s Picks
Critical perspectives on the books, culture, and ideas that shape our world
That Spoonful of Sugar….
The old apothecaries were far more efficient, and far kinder, than our streamlined mail order and national chains.
Reviews
Unpacking the ideas behind today’s most compelling works
The Lessons America Has Taught Me
Fox News Channel’s political anchor Bret Baier’s new book, “The Case for America,” is just in time for the 250th anniversary season. It feels a bit hasty in its composition, which gives a reader the sense that it was a book aimed at a ready market: people who want a book that is positive about the United States at this particularly divisive juncture, when many think the country is on the verge of its third political divorce.
The Elected King of Black America or the Black King of Progressivism
“A Dream Deferred” is a thoughtful book, especially for those who lived through and remember Jesse Jackson’s presidential runs. Abby Phillip gives us Jackson warts and all, the maddening egotism and opportunism, and the rumors of infidelity. Informed, highly readable, and even exciting at times as she recounts the thrills of the 1984 and 1988 presidential campaigns.
Maverick or Misfit, a Senator Seeks the Center of Things
You might say, as the youngsters do, that Fetterman did his party “a solid” simply by winning, especially as that seemed not so assured during the campaign. The problems Fetterman encountered during his Senate campaign are mostly what “Unfettered“ is about.
Past Issues
A look back at the ideas that shaped previous editions
Winter 2024
Black History Month 2024
Essays, reviews, and reflections that celebrate African American life and legacies
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Society & Culture
Insights into the cultural shifts and societal changes shaping our time
The Emotional Autopsy of Watching Your Team Lose
There is no arguing against winning and success, which invariably feels great. The problem with winning is that it is nowhere near as interesting as failure. It sounds just like the loser to complain that winning is “boring,” in that it prompts no reflection or analysis. But that complaint also rings true.
Writing is Like Making Love
The best thing about writing for oneself is that you always own your own work and can do exactly as you like with it.
Why David Eckstein Deserves a Bobblehead Doll
I am not a collector of sports memorabilia, but I did collect a box of David Eckstein cereal, EcksO’s, and I have a feeling that, on July 12, I will possess a David Eckstein bobblehead doll as well. Play ball!
Put a Time Machine in Your Closet
Why has clothing gotten less practical, less sustainable, and less comfortable?
Science & Nature
Essays on science, technology, and the natural world
Once Every Seventeen Years
The game here took place on several dimensions. It was, on one hand, a game with time—in the right place at the right moment—and on the other, with fish and bugs, in that moment. Once every seventeen years, maybe this might happen. But it has also become a game with memory, and with writing—and now, with technology.
Arts & Letters
Insights on creativity and the creative process
Something I Learned from You: Poise is Too Often Like Pose
I laughed and told my son that the singer reminded me of myself in high school—gawky, skinny, comic not handsome, watching everyone else but doing your own thing a little too enthusiastically.
People & Places
Stories of the people and places that shape our world
That Spoonful of Sugar….
The old apothecaries were far more efficient, and far kinder, than our streamlined mail order and national chains.
Why I Fly a Tiny Polish Flag
A very strange smile spread across his face. “You must sit with me and have dinner with my wife and me. My wife does not speak English, but you must tell her this story, just as you told me, and I will translate.” He would not explain further.
America 250
Never since that first Fourth of July have we been so divided between wannabe monarchists and republicans. Perhaps what we assumed would be progress has turned out to be a circle.
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The Common Reader, a publication of Washington University in St. Louis, offers the best in reviews, articles and creative non-fiction engaging the essential debates and issues of our time.