Books

I found Ta-Nehisi Coates’ book We Were Eight Years in Power surprisingly engaging. It combines a calm, friendly voice with a message of cold extremity. The message is that the sin of white supremacy is the true plot of US history. By trying to cure it, Obama exposed its true torrential force. The geniality of … Read more

In this giant, prodigiously sourced and insightful biography, John A. Farrell shows how Richard Milhous Nixon was the nightmare of the age for many Americans, even as he won years of near-adulation from many others. One can only think of Donald Trump. Nixon appealed to lower- and  lower-middle-class whites from the heartland, whose hatred of … Read more