The New York Review of Books
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‘The premier literary-intellectual magazine in the English language.’
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December 4, 2025 Issue
Table of Contents
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Our 12/4 issue is now online, with @around.com on the sucky Internet, Ursula Lindsey on Vigdis Hjorth, Sophie Pinkham on Uzbek art, @robtsullivan.bsky.social on the Native American fight for sovereignty, Zephyr Teachout on America’s scam economy, & more.
Sari Bashi on the shrinking fraction of Gaza that will be accessible to Palestinians under Trump’s UN-endorsed “peace plan”
Gaza: The Threat of Partition | Sari Bashi
On Monday the United Nations Security Council endorsed President Donald Trump’s twenty-point peace plan for Gaza, which creates a “Board of Peace,”
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November 25, 2025 at 1:33 PM
Sari Bashi on the shrinking fraction of Gaza that will be accessible to Palestinians under Trump’s UN-endorsed “peace plan”
Andrew O’Hagan on the men, merch, and memories at Oasis: Live ’25
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November 25, 2025 at 1:13 PM
Andrew O’Hagan on the men, merch, and memories at Oasis: Live ’25
Ai Xiaoming on the extraordinary life of Niu Lihua, a prisoner of China’s reeducation through labor camps, translated by Ian Johnson
The Road to Miaoxi | Ai Xiaoming, Ian Johnson
During the Cold War, educated people in free societies were so familiar with figures on the other side of the Iron Curtain that they were referred to just
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November 25, 2025 at 12:42 PM
Ai Xiaoming on the extraordinary life of Niu Lihua, a prisoner of China’s reeducation through labor camps, translated by Ian Johnson
“Probably the biggest departure from the neoliberal period is that the American state is taking equity in private corporations.” —a conversation with Susannah Glickman and Nic Johnson
Runaway Short-Termism | Susannah Glickman, Nic Johnson
Since retaking the presidency in January, Donald Trump has initiated a blitz of chaotic, damaging economic policies. For months, as Nic Johnson wrote in
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November 25, 2025 at 11:26 AM
“Probably the biggest departure from the neoliberal period is that the American state is taking equity in private corporations.” —a conversation with Susannah Glickman and Nic Johnson
“Facing the past can be painful, even dangerous. But in the service of a campaign to remake its image in the eyes of the world, Uzbekistan is now rallying the diverse forms of beauty at its disposal.” —Sophie Pinkham
Mixed Blessings | Sophie Pinkham
Uzbekistan has a new biennial, but how many of its aesthetic possibilities are underwritten by authoritarianism?
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November 24, 2025 at 2:02 PM
“Facing the past can be painful, even dangerous. But in the service of a campaign to remake its image in the eyes of the world, Uzbekistan is now rallying the diverse forms of beauty at its disposal.” —Sophie Pinkham
“Hope is a rare commodity, but if there is hope for the earth, generally it has to do with acknowledging indigenous sovereignty in the face of insatiable resource extraction.” —@robtsullivan.bsky.social
The Third Sovereign | Robert Sullivan
If there is hope for the earth, it will depend in part on acknowledging indigenous sovereignty in the face of insatiable resource extraction.
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November 23, 2025 at 3:55 PM
“Hope is a rare commodity, but if there is hope for the earth, generally it has to do with acknowledging indigenous sovereignty in the face of insatiable resource extraction.” —@robtsullivan.bsky.social
“Wartime conservatism [is] a ‘lost world,’” Ferdinand Mount writes. “Those who now call themselves conservatives retain little of the generous, open liberalism…of Baldwin, Churchill, and Macmillan.”
Flipping Britain’s Postwar Script | Ferdinand Mount
Understanding Britain’s postwar reforms like the National Health Service requires peering into the ‘lost world’ of wartime conservatism.
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November 23, 2025 at 12:57 PM
“Wartime conservatism [is] a ‘lost world,’” Ferdinand Mount writes. “Those who now call themselves conservatives retain little of the generous, open liberalism…of Baldwin, Churchill, and Macmillan.”
“In Spain, the effort to revive Franco’s reputation has been accompanied by ostentatious philosemitism…. This blend of philosemitism and antisemitism has also become a feature of the Trump administration.” —@dankaufman70.bsky.social
‘We’ve Got to Kill and Kill and Kill’ | Dan Kaufman
As Francisco Franco’s reputation grows on the far right, a new history of his regime reminds us of its unrelenting violence toward Jews.
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November 23, 2025 at 12:11 PM
“In Spain, the effort to revive Franco’s reputation has been accompanied by ostentatious philosemitism…. This blend of philosemitism and antisemitism has also become a feature of the Trump administration.” —@dankaufman70.bsky.social
“‘I’m not joking with history,’ one character says” in Radu Jude’s Kontinental ’25. “But that would be redundant, since [Romania’s] history is already Jude’s most polished joke.” —Anna Shechtman and D.A. Miller
Shithole Cinema | Anna Shechtman, D. A. Miller
In Radu Jude’s Romania, people don’t have a good word to say about the country or its citizens; on the contrary, they curse the place with a vehemence as
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November 22, 2025 at 2:05 PM
“‘I’m not joking with history,’ one character says” in Radu Jude’s Kontinental ’25. “But that would be redundant, since [Romania’s] history is already Jude’s most polished joke.” —Anna Shechtman and D.A. Miller
Sophie Pinkham on aesthetic possibilities and authoritarian realities at the Bukhara Biennial in Uzbekistan
Mixed Blessings | Sophie Pinkham
Uzbekistan has a new biennial, but how many of its aesthetic possibilities are underwritten by authoritarianism?
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November 22, 2025 at 11:16 AM
Sophie Pinkham on aesthetic possibilities and authoritarian realities at the Bukhara Biennial in Uzbekistan
Between the “war on terror” and Covid lockdowns, Giorgio Agamben “had said all along that when governments take charge of matters of health, reproduction, and bodily autonomy, they will ultimately exercise power over life and death.” —Adam Kirsch
The Apolitical Life | Adam Kirsch
The philosopher Giorgio Agamben exalts an ideal of what he calls “inoperativity”—a kind of passivity as an antidote to the West’s politics of power and domination.
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November 21, 2025 at 4:13 PM
Between the “war on terror” and Covid lockdowns, Giorgio Agamben “had said all along that when governments take charge of matters of health, reproduction, and bodily autonomy, they will ultimately exercise power over life and death.” —Adam Kirsch
Ferdinand Mount on how conservative politicians in interwar Britain laid the foundations for Labour’s postwar reforms
Flipping Britain’s Postwar Script | Ferdinand Mount
Understanding Britain’s postwar reforms like the National Health Service requires peering into the ‘lost world’ of wartime conservatism.
www.nybooks.com
November 21, 2025 at 3:22 PM
Ferdinand Mount on how conservative politicians in interwar Britain laid the foundations for Labour’s postwar reforms
“Filmed by Alex Ashe on gorgeous, grainy 16mm film, the movie is [presented as] an analog artifact, like a photograph printed in a darkroom: this may have been life, but it is only an image, a fiction, now.” —@andrew-durbin.bsky.social on Peter Hujar’s Day
This May Have Been Life | Andrew Durbin
There are only a few surviving recordings of the photographer Peter Hujar’s voice. In the portion of his archive at the Morgan Library in New York, a
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November 21, 2025 at 12:12 PM
“Filmed by Alex Ashe on gorgeous, grainy 16mm film, the movie is [presented as] an analog artifact, like a photograph printed in a darkroom: this may have been life, but it is only an image, a fiction, now.” —@andrew-durbin.bsky.social on Peter Hujar’s Day
“One course Trump might pursue is dropping MAGA-minded American colonists into one of [Greenland’s] vast uninhabited spaces, on the order of the demented American Equatorial Islands Colonization Project of the 1930s.” —an interview with Gordon F. Sander
Good-Bye Atlanticism, Hello Darkness | Gordon F. Sander, Chandler Fritz
President Donald Trump’s threat to annex Greenland has by now been buried under dozens of new headlines about the depraved exploits of his second
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November 21, 2025 at 11:07 AM
“One course Trump might pursue is dropping MAGA-minded American colonists into one of [Greenland’s] vast uninhabited spaces, on the order of the demented American Equatorial Islands Colonization Project of the 1930s.” —an interview with Gordon F. Sander
The latest dispatch from our Art Editor, Leanne Shapton
Non Nom | Leanne Shapton
A dispatch from the Art Editor
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November 20, 2025 at 10:02 PM
The latest dispatch from our Art Editor, Leanne Shapton
Reposted by The New York Review of Books
The 1975 Boldt decision changed the world -- or fixed it, to some extent -- and its power reverberates today.
Robert Sullivan (@robtsullivan.bsky.social) on Native American tribal sovereignty and stewardship of the earth
The Third Sovereign | Robert Sullivan
If there is hope for the earth, it will depend in part on acknowledging indigenous sovereignty in the face of insatiable resource extraction.
www.nybooks.com
November 20, 2025 at 3:58 PM
The 1975 Boldt decision changed the world -- or fixed it, to some extent -- and its power reverberates today.
Anna Shechtman and D.A. Miller on the gross, long, shitty, and brilliant films of Radu Jude
Shithole Cinema | Anna Shechtman, D. A. Miller
In Radu Jude’s Romania, people don’t have a good word to say about the country or its citizens; on the contrary, they curse the place with a vehemence as
www.nybooks.com
November 20, 2025 at 4:52 PM
Anna Shechtman and D.A. Miller on the gross, long, shitty, and brilliant films of Radu Jude
“Franco’s regime…was far more hospitable to fascist refugees than it ever was to Jewish ones. Despite this history, or perhaps because of it, Franco’s reputation continues to grow on the American far right.” —@dankaufman70.bsky.social
‘We’ve Got to Kill and Kill and Kill’ | Dan Kaufman
As Francisco Franco’s reputation grows on the far right, a new history of his regime reminds us of its unrelenting violence toward Jews.
www.nybooks.com
November 20, 2025 at 4:25 PM
“Franco’s regime…was far more hospitable to fascist refugees than it ever was to Jewish ones. Despite this history, or perhaps because of it, Franco’s reputation continues to grow on the American far right.” —@dankaufman70.bsky.social
Anthony Domestico @tonydomestico.bsky.social on Amy Clampitt’s pleasure-giving poetry
Ever Inward | Anthony Domestico
A biography of the poet Amy Clampitt shows how poetry germinated throughout her life and blossomed in a late-career flourishing.
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November 20, 2025 at 2:06 PM
Anthony Domestico @tonydomestico.bsky.social on Amy Clampitt’s pleasure-giving poetry
Robert Sullivan (@robtsullivan.bsky.social) on Native American tribal sovereignty and stewardship of the earth
The Third Sovereign | Robert Sullivan
If there is hope for the earth, it will depend in part on acknowledging indigenous sovereignty in the face of insatiable resource extraction.
www.nybooks.com
November 20, 2025 at 1:03 PM
Robert Sullivan (@robtsullivan.bsky.social) on Native American tribal sovereignty and stewardship of the earth
“[Miaow] happens to have been my introduction to Galdós some thirty years ago,” Natasha Wimmer writes. “The reality of the novel is livelier and stranger than [my] memories would suggest.”
The Bureaucrat in His Labyrinth | Natasha Wimmer
Benito Pérez Galdós’s mid-career novel Miaow sketches the absurd tribulations of a laid-off civil servant.
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November 20, 2025 at 11:24 AM
“[Miaow] happens to have been my introduction to Galdós some thirty years ago,” Natasha Wimmer writes. “The reality of the novel is livelier and stranger than [my] memories would suggest.”
“[Vigdis Hjorth’s] If Only is an anti-love story, a reverse romance: instead of hoping and waiting for the lovers to get together, you dread their being finally united.” —@ursulind.bsky.social
Clarity and Delusion | Ursula Lindsey
The Norwegian writer Vigdis Hjorth has a gift for depicting painful, confusing, and mortifying relationships.
www.nybooks.com
November 20, 2025 at 10:10 AM
“[Vigdis Hjorth’s] If Only is an anti-love story, a reverse romance: instead of hoping and waiting for the lovers to get together, you dread their being finally united.” —@ursulind.bsky.social
Reposted by The New York Review of Books
"Multilevel marketing is the elegant-sounding moniker designed to describe a business model in which people...earn money by buying products from a centralized hub & then reselling them. MLM participants can add to their earnings by recruiting others to join"
www.nybooks.com/articles/202...
www.nybooks.com/articles/202...
Selling a Defective Dream | Zephyr Teachout
How did multilevel marketing schemes come to be legal, let alone so widespread? The answer has to do with how we think of workers and how we think of consumers.
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November 19, 2025 at 3:15 AM
"Multilevel marketing is the elegant-sounding moniker designed to describe a business model in which people...earn money by buying products from a centralized hub & then reselling them. MLM participants can add to their earnings by recruiting others to join"
www.nybooks.com/articles/202...
www.nybooks.com/articles/202...
Reposted by The New York Review of Books
15/ “‘We’ve Got to Kill and Kill and Kill’ *
As Francisco Franco’s reputation grows on the far right, a new history of his regime reminds us of its unrelenting violence.” Dec 2025 Issue www.nybooks.com/articles/202...
As Francisco Franco’s reputation grows on the far right, a new history of his regime reminds us of its unrelenting violence.” Dec 2025 Issue www.nybooks.com/articles/202...
‘We’ve Got to Kill and Kill and Kill’ | Dan Kaufman
As Francisco Franco’s reputation grows on the far right, a new history of his regime reminds us of its unrelenting violence toward Jews.
www.nybooks.com
November 19, 2025 at 4:58 PM
15/ “‘We’ve Got to Kill and Kill and Kill’ *
As Francisco Franco’s reputation grows on the far right, a new history of his regime reminds us of its unrelenting violence.” Dec 2025 Issue www.nybooks.com/articles/202...
As Francisco Franco’s reputation grows on the far right, a new history of his regime reminds us of its unrelenting violence.” Dec 2025 Issue www.nybooks.com/articles/202...