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Jennifer Szalai @jenszalai.bsky.social · 8h

I was struck by that line too. I reviewed Walter’s book “How Civil Wars Start” when it was published way back in 2022. her analysis was incisive; I was hoping it wouldn’t be prescient:
www.nytimes.com/2022/01/03/b...

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Jennifer Szalai @jenszalai.bsky.social · 2d

Philippe Sands‘s excellent new book traces the links between the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and an old Nazi named Walter Rauff — two men who embraced the deployment of state power to torture and murder human beings.

Pinochet - who issued an amnesty law in 1978 to immunize himself and his government from prosecution - blamed the people below, insisting he could not control their "excesses"; Rauff blamed the people above, insisting that he was only following orders.

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Jennifer Szalai @jenszalai.bsky.social · 4d

I highly recommend Philippe Sands’s absorbing new book about Pinochet, a Nazi hiding out in Patagonia, and impunity:

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/03/b...

How to Get Away With Crimes Against Humanity

www.nytimes.com

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Jennifer Szalai @jenszalai.bsky.social · 6d

Took a break from writing about political memoirs to review a big new biography of Bruce Lee [gift link] www.nytimes.com/2025/10/01/b...

Bruce Lee Died Young, but He Changed the Look of Movies Forever

www.nytimes.com

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Jennifer Szalai @jenszalai.bsky.social · 7d

“But the right did not learn cancel culture from the left; the modern right in America emerged as a censorious movement. It took decades for its free-speech faction to develop, and even then, it has only ever been a minority part of the coalition.” — Nicole Hemmer www.nytimes.com/2025/09/30/o...

Opinion | The Right Didn’t Catch Cancel Culture From the Left

www.nytimes.com

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Reposted by Jennifer Szalai

Jason Zinoman @jasonzinoman.bsky.social · 13d

I thought Ross Douthat's recent explanation of how late night became more political was off. So I dug into the history. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/24/a...

How Did Late-Night Get So Political? It Didn’t Start With Trump

www.nytimes.com

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Jennifer Szalai @jenszalai.bsky.social · 27d

Sporting a few piercings and tattoos, Lee says he used to have more subdermal piercings. Unlike regular piercings
in ear lobes, these piercings cannot be removed by hand. If a wearer needs or wants them removed, they must
consult a doctor or professional piercer.
"An officer had been taking me to this room and he said:
'You aren't allowed to have those.
• He pointed at my
piercings," he recalls. "Next thing I knew I was being shackled again. Chains around my ankles, my wrists. They brought me to a
hospital in Miami. "They made me stand with all of these people looking at
me like I was some sort of murderer. It was so degrading. They brought me into a room. They told the doctors to
cut out all of my piercings. "I had already been there for almost a month. I didn't understand why this was suddenly an issue. I just feel like
everything was done to intimidate and torture. "I told the nurses specifically: 'I do not consent to this.' But they put lidocaine [for numbing] on my face and on the back of my neck. The thing is it is only supposed to work for 40 minutes; I was lying there for well over an hour and they just started doing it. I was shackled to the
bed. I couldn't move.

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Reposted by Jennifer Szalai

Jason Zinoman @jasonzinoman.bsky.social · 29d

"Any personal details we do get are titrated just so." @jenszalai.bsky.social on Amy Coney Barrett. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/08/b...

Amy Coney Barrett’s Memoir Is as Careful and Disciplined as Its Author

www.nytimes.com

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Jennifer Szalai @jenszalai.bsky.social · 29d

The agent asked whether Mr. Gavidia was American, and he said he was.

The agent then asked what hospital Mr. Gavidia had been born in, and he said he did not know. According to the lawsuit, the agent and a colleague proceeded to slam Mr. Gavidia against a metal gate, twist his arm and seize his phone.

“Fearing for his life, Gavidia offered to show the agents his ID,” the lawsuit said. “The agents took the ID, and about 20 minutes later, returned Gavidia’s phone and set him free. They never returned his ID.”

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Jennifer Szalai @jenszalai.bsky.social · Sep 5

"The use of masks," Mr. Levitsky said, "is
without question a bad sign." And it is extremely rare in functional democracies. "I cannot think of a democratic country with a reliable rule of law where security forces mask themselves," Mr. Levitsky said. "It just
doesn't happen."

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Jennifer Szalai @jenszalai.bsky.social · Sep 2

He was brought to the US when he was 12, on a green card. Now, at the age of 62, after serving his time, instead of being sent to his birth country of Jamaica—which was willing to repatriate him—he was sent to Eswatini, a country he has no connection to, and where he might be detained indefinitely.

Hamed Aleaziz @haleaziz.bsky.social · Sep 2

The Eswatini government at one point requested a half-billion dollars from the United States in exchange for taking in third-country deportees, according to documents obtained by The Times.

www.nytimes.com/2025/09/01/w...

Man Who’d Served His Time in U.S. Is Deported to an African Prison

www.nytimes.com

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Reposted by Jennifer Szalai

Jan-Werner Mueller @jwmueller-pu.bsky.social · Aug 22

... and the online proliferation of fake Arendt quotes is one of the earliest and most telling signs of ... what?

Jennifer Szalai @jenszalai.bsky.social · Aug 22

There's an arresting quotation that resurfaces online now and again, usually accompanied by a photograph of a dark- haired woman with an intense gaze: "The death of human empathy is one of the earliest and most telling signs that a culture is about to fall into barbarism." It's followed by the name of the woman in the picture: the political philosopher Hannah Arendt, who fled the barbarism of Nazi
Germany. Only there's no record of Arendt ever saying that, or anything like it. The bogus quotation is the kind of artifact that flourishes on the internet in bewildering times - plausible-sounding and politically
ominous.

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Jennifer Szalai @jenszalai.bsky.social · Aug 22

Yes — she was always emphasizing the importance of thinking (instead of feeling) when it came to politics

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Jennifer Szalai @jenszalai.bsky.social · Aug 22

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Jennifer Szalai @jenszalai.bsky.social · Aug 21

www.nytimes.com/2024/07/13/b...

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Reposted by Jennifer Szalai

Sam Adams @samadams.bsky.social · Aug 12

this sucks, but it will suck much less when some smart editor snaps up Richard

Richard Lawson @rilaws.bsky.social · Aug 12

Area Critic (Me) Needs New Job.

Reach out if you want me to write for you! Doesn't have to be reviews!

Vanity Fair Will Refocus on Hollywood and Cut Back Some Coverage Areas, Says New Editorial Director

Vanity Fair will scale back certain areas of coverage, including shutting down The Hive, to focus on entertainment and culture, editorial director Mark Guiducci said.

variety.com

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Reposted by Jennifer Szalai

Matt Steinglass @mattsteinglass.bsky.social · Aug 10

Just seeing this now. Really fascinating. Hungarians apparently still had measurable Yakut ancestry in the Middle Ages but by now are genetically indistinguishable from others in Central Europe, while Finns are still 10% Yakut

Toomas Hendrik Ilves @ilvestoomas.bsky.social · Jul 20

news.harvard.edu/gazette/stor...

Ancient DNA solves mystery of Hungarian, Finnish language origins — Harvard Gazette

Parent emerged over 4,000 years ago in Siberia, farther east than many thought, then rapidly spread west, study finds.

news.harvard.edu

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Jennifer Szalai @jenszalai.bsky.social · Aug 6

This book was so astute and prescient, and then its lessons were ignored for decades by laissez-faire ideologues who ignored the key role played by social ties. I first read Polanyi in the late ‘90s, when neoliberalism seemed unstoppable; his work was a bracing antidote to so much easy triumphalism.

Erik Nordman @eriknordman.bsky.social · Jul 30

I thought this passage from Karl Polyani's "The Great Transformation" (1944) was particularly apt for our time.
"The outstanding discovery of recent historical and anthropological research is that man’s economy, as a rule, is submerged in his social relationships." 1/4

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Jennifer Szalai @jenszalai.bsky.social · Aug 6

I reviewed Robert Reich’s new book, in which he argues that “the central struggle of civilization” is “fighting bullies.” Relentlessly bullied as a kid, he says institutions that constrain the bully’s will to dominate are key: “I would not survive a minute in a society based on brute force.”

He Always Fought for the Little Guy, and Not Just Because He’s 4-Foot-11

www.nytimes.com

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Jennifer Szalai @jenszalai.bsky.social · Aug 6

Thank you so much!

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Jennifer Szalai @jenszalai.bsky.social · Aug 5

When he first arrived at his foster home, Maksim fastidiously counted the days he was apart from his parents. But recently, he
told his mother he had stopped counting. "What's the point of counting days? We will not be united," his mother recalled him
saying recently.

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Jennifer Szalai @jenszalai.bsky.social · Aug 4

Worth reading again: John Lanchester's profile of the BLS (which also appeared in Michael Lewis's recent book, "Who Is Government"). Gift link:

wapo.st/4l7AJjR

Opinion | The Number

How a country collects and interprets data reveals a lot about what it values.

wapo.st

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Jennifer Szalai @jenszalai.bsky.social · Aug 2

Jon Lee Anderson and Scott Anderson are brothers who try not to be in the same war zone at the same time, but I caught up with them while they both happened to be in New Jersey. We talked about their unconventional lives and their unconventional upbringing.

Two War Reporter Brothers, 60 Countries and Now a Pair of New Books

www.nytimes.com

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Jennifer Szalai @jenszalai.bsky.social · Jul 23

I mean:

A regal cat named Hank, known as the regional manager of the Literary Cat Co. in Pittsburg, Kansas

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Jennifer Szalai @jenszalai.bsky.social · Jul 23

Great photos, too:

At Bear Pond Books in Montpelier, Vt., a Russian desert tortoise named Veruca Salt

Murphy Grace and Whiskey Sue of Double Dog Bookshop in Wentzville, Mo.

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