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| Big Goal: Ronald Reagan’s confidence that the Cold War could be won made him unusual. At the time he ran for president, both Republicans and Democrats believed that America was in decline. The CIA mistakenly thought the Soviet economy was growing. And the policies of arms control and détente—or direct negotiations—were ascendant. Reagan sought neither appeasement nor war with the Soviets, but rather their negotiated surrender. Matthew Continetti on “The Peacemaker: Ronald Reagan, the Cold War, and the World on the Brink” by William Inboden. Read the review |
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| | | |  | | The Good Country
By Jon K. Lauck The part of the country first defined as the “Northwest Territory” constituted an early laboratory for the hopes of its settlers. Within a century, Midwest states like Ohio and Illinois had claimed their place at the center of American politics and culture. Read the review |
 | | The New Yorkers
By Sam Roberts Politicos and policemen, sailors and saloon-keepers, factory workers and fast talkers: An ingenious social history of Gotham, rendered in deft individual profiles, brings to life characters so vivid that it’s strange they could have ever been forgotten. Read the review |
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| Reaction: As the Iron Curtain began to fall, Jiang Zemin grew alarmed. On June 4, 1989, the Solidarity movement had won elections in Poland—and the pro-reform, pro-democracy Tiananmen protests in China were crushed. Three weeks later, Jiang would assume authority as general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, announcing that “only socialism can save China.” He would go on to help make China an economic powerhouse, but he pushed every private enterprise to establish Communist Party cells. Tunku Varadarajan on two books about China. Read the review |
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| “The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida”: Shehan Karunatilaka’s Booker-winning novel is a frenetic work of magical realism that confronts Sri Lanka’s recent history of political violence. Read the review |
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| | | |  | | Straight Lady
By Chris Enss & Howard Kazanjian For chaotic comedy to take hold, someone must embody the spirit of social order. In films like “Duck Soup” and “At the Circus,” Margaret Dumont played it straight, to such good effect that Groucho once called her “the fifth Marx Brother.” Read the review |
 | | Finale
By D.T. Max When composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim died in November 2021, the theatrical community—and countless fans—went into mourning. A collection of interviews he granted during his final years reveal a visionary artist determined not to let his life story turn into cliché. Read the review |
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| | Science Fiction & Fantasy |
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| “Leech”: A new doctor arrives at a noble family’s remote estate, but it’s the passenger inside the physician’s body who will make the diagnosis. Read the review |
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| | When the Force Is With You |
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| Hold Steady: The engineers who designed London’s Millennium Bridge knew they needed to prevent pedestrians’ footsteps from matching the structure’s natural vibration—or else the bridge would start to oscillate like a sine wave, and its stability would be dangerously undermined. But the designers didn’t take into account the sideways forces that result when walkers shift from one foot to the other. After the bridge opened in 2000, Londoners bestowed the nickname “Wobbly Bridge,” and it had to be closed and redesigned. William Gurstelle on “Force: What It Means to Push and Pull, Slip and Grip, Start and Stop” by Henry Petroski. Read the review |
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| | | On the Soviet Era of Sports |
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- Faster, Higher, Stronger, Comrades! Sports, Art, and Ideology in Late Russian and Early Soviet Culture By Tim Harte (2020)
- My Story By Olga Korbut with Ellen Emerson-White (1992)
- The Whole World Was Watching: Sport in the Cold War Edited by Robert Edelman and Christopher Young (2020)
- Letters to a Young Gymnast By Nadia Comaneci (2003)
- Dropping the Torch: Jimmy Carter, the Olympic Boycott, and the Cold War By Nicholas Evan Sarantakes (2011)
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