This summer, I’ve resolved to punctuate my routine of weekdays at Council on Foreign Relations and bacchanalian weekends at the shore with a few learning experiences. Last week, I watched Tommy Wiseau’s cult classic, The Room. A few days ago, I attempted to camp on the beach. And yesterday morning, I attended the synagogue of … Read more
The Monroe Doctrine: Empire and Nation in Nineteenth-Century America, by Jay Sexton. Hill and Wang, 2011. $27.00, 304 pp. For a work of academic history, Jay Sexton’s The Monroe Doctrine: Empire and Nation in Nineteenth- Century America is a brisk and rewarding read. In a little under three hundred pages, the author, a lecturer at … Read more
Kill the Irishman, Jonathan Hensleigh. Anchor Bay Films, 2011. 106 min. Summer 1976 was not a pleasant time to be a resident of Cleveland, Ohio. Throughout the months, a series of 36 car bombs traumatized the city. These deaths capped a street war between the city’s long-influential Italian mafia and an Irishman seeking to break … Read more
Why Marx Was Right, by Terry Eagleton. Yale University Press, 2011. $25.00, 272 pp. “You can tell that the capitalist system is in trouble when people start talking about capitalism,” writes Terry Eagleton in the preface to his new book, Why Marx Was Right. Eagleton is a literary theorist and an English professor at the … Read more
In the summer of 2010, USA Today’s Greg Toppo asked, “Is 2010 the year of the education documentary?” The article seized on a striking trend: the sudden emergence of films examining the problem of public education in the United States. Three of these, 2010’s highly acclaimed Waiting for “Superman,” the lesser-known 2009 film The Cartel, … Read more
Kabuki Democracy: The System vs. Barack Obama By Eric Alterman. Nation Books, 2011. Paperback: $14.99, 224 pp. Eric Alterman, like many Americans on the far left, is frustrated. Despite Barack Obama’s bold and inspiring campaign rhetoric, the president, even with supermajorities in both houses, “wasn’t able to deliver on the bulk of his promises,” said … Read more
Recently, we sat down with Tom Shadyac, director of comedies like Ace Ventura and Bruce Almighty, to discuss his new documentary, I Am, which focuses on many of the problems with the world today and how we can fix them. Harvard Political Review: How did you decide who to interview for this film?Tom Shadyac: Those … Read more
As a devout Radiohead fan, I waited with bated breath for the long-anticipated, much-hyped, and partially leaked sequel to In Rainbows, the band’s 2007 installment that some critics lauded as the best album of the year. Of course, I mistakenly assumed that The King of Limbs in fact was a sequel to In Rainbows; I sensed … Read more
Much has been written about Sunday night’s Oscar ceremony in the past 48 hours: The King’s Speech’s big win, Melissa Leo’s f-bomb, and of course, James Franco’s inability to wipe that shit-eating grin off his face. I’d love to add my voice to the discussion, except there’s one tiny issue: I didn’t watch the telecast. … Read more
The rate of change in Middle Eastern politics today is nearly impossible to measure. Without correspondents on the ground, it’s hard to produce any genuinely novel commentary. Valentine’s Day is the perfect occasion for a change in tone: a poetic reflection of mine set loosely in Middle Eastern history and firmly to the tune of … Read more