online archive
5:00PM
JUL 9 2008
Why implausibility sells
From The Believer, “an original adventure”: Elizabeth Hardwick eluded domesticity and became a pioneer of New York women intellectuals; an article on Freud, Dora (no, not that Dora), and surfing's secret Austro-Hungarian roots; and American black metal bands specialize in a uniquely brutal, homegrown sound, but they don't actually kill people; so why should they be taken seriously? Why implausibility sells: An article on the strange quest to write history in the absence of evidence. A review of Rousseau's Platonic Enlightenment by David Lay Williams. More and more and more and more on Hammer & Tickle: A History of Communism Told Through Communist Jokes by Ben Lewis. Why female South American leaders succeeded while Clinton’s run sputtered to a halt. An excerpt from Bill Bishop's The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart (and more). Meet the Council of Conservative Citizens — a group that offers a biblical defense of slavery and laments the survival of African babies. We can measure eyesight and hearing — so why not smell? A review of books on the highs and lows of covering the war. From FP, an article on the world's dirtiest cities: Arsenic-laced drinking water, lead-contaminated soils and choking air pollution are sadly just the start in some of the world's dirtiest places; and a list of the world’s lost environmental causes.
