THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS

JULY 4. 2026

‘Extraordinarily Profitable Fiduciary Rapport’

The old saying “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” is, in fact, not all that old, and not really a saying. It was written by the Las Vegas Convention

JULY 2. 2026

Fashion Forward

Why has the Metropolitan Museum of Art sold prime gallery space to the fashion industry?

Wonder & Disillusion

The naturalist George Forster was fascinated by plants and animals, but he was also driven by a passionate belief in the rights of all people regardless of race, gender, or social status.

An Uncertain Triumphalism

America’s centennial in 1876 was celebrated with a grand exhibition that projected an image of national unity and inventiveness in the anxious aftermath of civil war and recession.

Climate and Punishment

Vigil finds George Saunders returning to the theme of his first novel, grief—this time not for a person but for a planet.

Hungary: The Flood

Peter Magyar’s landslide electoral victory in April made clear that after sixteen years, Hungarians were tired of Viktor Orbán.

Space Oddity

Quinn Slobodian and Ben Tarnoff’s Muskism examines how Elon Musk became the world’s first trillionaire, by selling a vision of the future that very few people would want to inhabit.

When India Reinvented Prints

Two forceful exhibitions have shown how Indian artists and presses met the cultural upheaval of the nineteenth century with lithographic prints that rendered Hindu gods more approachable and helped to galvanize national identity.

The Late Bohemian

Rosemary Tonks emulated French Symbolist poets before converting to Christianity and renouncing all her own works.

Song of Our Cells

Though a mystery to Darwin in his lifetime, the constant mutation of our genes is what allows for life’s magnificent diversity.

The New Ellis Island

A history of five families in El Paso reveals the city’s significance as a bellwether of America’s immigration policy.

On the Precipice

Critics who call André Breton’s Nadja a novel miss its most innovative aspects.

Compromised Values

Joe Manchin’s memoir reveals that the West Virginian Senator worshipped “work” at the expense of supporting his party’s efforts to help working people.

The Judeo-Bolshevist Target

Popular memory in the West tends to separate the Holocaust from the German war against the Soviet Union, but for the Nazi regime they were two faces of the same undertaking.