First published 2014
Franklin Foer assembles seventy essays spanning a century of The New Republic magazine's archives. The collection begins with the magazine's 1914 founding by Herbert Croly and Walter Lippmann as a voice for progressive politics. Foer organizes the pieces chronologically by decade, showcasing writers who tackled America's defining moments and movements. The anthology covers the New Deal era, wartime debates, the communist rise and collapse, civil rights struggles, economic upheavals, and battles over terrorism, technology, and social change. Contributors include Virginia Woolf analyzing literature, George Orwell dissecting politics, John Maynard Keynes explaining economics, and contemporary voices like Zadie Smith and Michael Lewis. Foer introduces each piece with biographical details and historical context from the magazine's colorful past. The collection demonstrates how liberal intellectual thought evolved across ten decades of American history, offering readers a window into the minds that shaped progressive discourse.
Genres: history, anthologies, 20th-century, biography-memoir, 21st-century, journalism, academic, american-history
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family
Setting: America
Period: 1914, New Deal Era, Cold War
608 pages · Hardcover · Harper