Oxford University Press

Book Review: “Drawing the Line” — How to Respond to “Immoral” Artists

January 4, 2022
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Drawing the Line is grounded in the work of ethicists and psychologists. Its prose is clear and its arguments systematic. But every avenue of investigation only opens up another pathway that ends as a cul-de-sac or doubles back on itself.

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Book Review: “Walk With Me” — The Heroism of Fannie Lou Hamer

October 30, 2021
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A three-dimensional portrait of one of the most powerful and eloquent leaders of the civil rights movement in Mississippi.

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Book Interview: Translator Brian Nelson on Finally Hearing Émile Zola’s Voice in English

May 12, 2021
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“Why read Zola now? Leaving aside sheer enjoyment of his narrative art, I’d say: because his representation of society’s impact on the individuals within it memorably depicts what it means to be a human being in the modern world.”

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Book Interview: Translator Julie Rose on the Lyrical Power of Émile Zola’s “Doctor Pascal”

May 12, 2021
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Published in August of 2020, Oxford University Press’s English translation of Doctor Pascal marked the first time that Émile Zola’s 20-book Les Rougon-Macquart series was available in print under one publisher.

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Book Review: “The Making of the American Creative Class” — Unions, Their Rise and Fall

January 29, 2021
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This history of union activity among white-collar workers in New York City tells an illuminating story about creative labor’s effort to be treated with respect by the powerful.

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Book Review: “The Movement” — The Struggle for Civil Rights, Abbreviated

January 26, 2021
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The Movement works best as a stripped-down, high-speed introduction to the struggle for civil rights, nothing more.

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Book Review: “Journey into the Land of the Zeks and Back” — “Jews, Write and Record.”

October 8, 2020
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An unabridged text of an incisive, harrowing, and absorbing eyewitness account of the Gulag has finally been published in English translation.

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Book Review: “Heart Full of Rhythm: The Big Band Years of Louis Armstrong” — The King of All Kings

September 30, 2020
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He may be extreme as a polemicist, but Ricky Riccardi shines when he sticks to jazz’s history. 

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Book Interview: Heather Cox Richardson on “How the South Won the Civil War”

May 25, 2020
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“Politics is driven by language, and America’s peculiar history has given oligarchs the language to undercut democracy.”

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Book Review: The ‘Papa’ of Male Modern Dance, Ted Shawn — A Story of Changing Norms

December 9, 2019
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In this new biography, Ted Shawn is on display in all his narcissism, paternalism, hypocrisy, originality, and the dedication to creative expression that set American modern dance on its way.

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