Common Sense by Thomas Paine
Had someone told me that this American revolutionary pamphlet had a big influence on the Tea Party and the Trump nativists, I would have believed them. I don’t think it did but Paine as a writer reflects the same white privileged sense of grievance. Boohoo,…
The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction by Walter Benjamin
This short essay packs a punch because Benjamin isolates the essence of both the uniqueness of a work of art and also the particular characteristic that technology brings to reproduction. For example, a photo of a painting may convey more detail than what the human…
Deacon King Kong by James McBride
Sportcoat must have been possessed to shoot Deems that fine September 1969 day. In some ways that sums up the entire novel but not really. McBride tells a rollicking tale of late sixties life in a projects called Cause that just recently converted completely African…
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