A rich, harrowing chronicle of the federal government’s oppression of homosexuals in the 20th century firmly refuses to draw any connection to today’s struggles.
Books
Book reviews and essays from the Washington Monthly on the new books shaping debates over politics, policy, history, and American democracy.
Posted inBooks
Stop Thanking Vets and Start Listening To Them
The National Book Award winner for fiction offers essays that help explain and bind our post-9/11 wounds.
Posted inBooks
America’s Black Founders
David Hackett Fischer demonstrates the centrality of people of African descent in shaping this country’s regional cultures.
Posted inBooks
Wrecking the College Pecking Order
Much of higher education has a love/hate relationship with college rankings: love them when their college does well, and refuse to recognize their existence if they ever drop a spot. But most colleges—and selective institutions in particular—play the rankings game in two key ways. First, they spend considerable time and effort putting together data for […]
Posted inBooks
Neoliberalism Is Dying. What Comes Next?
History shows that the period between the end of one political order and the beginning of another is a time of maximum danger.
Posted inBooks
The 2022 Kukula Award Winners
The Monthly’s national journalism prize celebrating the best in nonfiction book reviewing and honoring Kukula Kapoor Glastris, the magazine’s beloved books editor.
Posted inBooks
Madeleine Albright’s Fascism Warning Is More Pertinent Than Ever
The anti-abortion, book-banning, and Disney-bashing policies in red states have all the authoritarian hallmarks.
Posted inBooks
The Endless Struggle Between Presidents and the Press
A new study focuses on the relationship between the White House and the media in the years since Woodrow Wilson, but it gives short shrift to the 19th century.
Posted inApril/May/June 2022
Michael Madigan: The Man Who Ran Illinois
How the longest-serving legislative leader in U.S. history wielded power—until the feds caught up to him.
Posted inApril/May/June 2022
Can Diverse Democracies Survive?
Without the glue of a shared national narrative, probably not.
