David Marcus

How Taiwan Became the Chipmaker for the World A new book tells the story of the island-nation’s transformation into a central hub for technological development and manufacturing.

Amidst the fixation with semiconductors and geopolitics, how did Taiwan become a center of global electronics? Who were the people that powered its rise, and what happens when the tinkerer becomes the tycoon?
I review Honghong Tinn's Island Tinkerers @thenation.com:
www.thenation.com/article/worl...

Grateful to be a finalist for the Nona Balakian Award for @bookcritics.bsky.social. This would not be possible without the commissions from my editors at @thenation.com @davidmarcus.bsky.social & @newrepublic.com. Congrats to Rhoda Feng (the winner) & the other finalists. www.bookcritics.org/awards/

Helen DeWitt and Ilya Gridneff’s Sweeping Anti-War Novel Your Name Here dramatizes the tensions and possibilities of political art.

"Your Name Here asks how literature should respond to a reality that is equal parts vapid and violent, where the celebration of mediocrity is correlated with an utter disregard for human life." Jess Bergman in @thenation.com www.thenation.com/article/cult...

Mahmood Mamdani’s Uganda In his new book Slow Poison, the accomplished anthropologist revisits the Idi Amin and Yoweri Museveni years.

@hofrench.bsky.social in a wonderful piece for @thenation.com on Mahmood Mamdani's Uganda www.thenation.com/article/worl...

William F. Buckley Jr.’s Friends and Enemies What was it about Buckley that made him so attractive to liberals—and what was it about liberals that caused them to be attracted to conservative figures like Buckley in the first place?

5. Over at The Nation, I write about Buckley's politics of friendship, how he creating a chummy world of insiders & those excluded from the club. I raise the question: sure, Buckley was fun company but would you want to marry one of his sisters? www.thenation.com/article/cult...

Thrilled to be nominated! Thanks to my brilliant editor @davidmarcus.bsky.social, who commissioned me as well as another finalist, and who has made The Nation's @booksandthearts.bsky.social section such a vital space for book criticism.

Is it that many New Yorkers find the field disappointing per NYT or rather NYT finds the preferences of many voting New Yorkers disappointing?

What Is Freedom For? Books & the Arts / June 9, 2025 Free From What? Quentin Skinner and the contested 
history of liberty What Is Freedom For? Quentin Skinner and the contested 
history of liberty. Samuel Moyn Share Co...

I reviewed Quentin Skinner’s new one www.thenation.com/article/arch...

Christopher Hill’s Revolutions The radical life and work of the historian.

Peter Linebaugh and I just published an essay about the life & work of Christopher Hill, one of the greatest historians of the 20c, in @thenation.com: “In 1965, [Hill] was elected master of Balliol College. History from below had arrived at the Oxford high table.”
www.thenation.com/article/soci...

He’s got the grannies

The Invention of Close Reading By transforming quotations into evidence, close reading served as way to turn postwar criticism into a specialized knowledge. But what if we treated it more as an art form?

‪Why should we do close reading? @dan-sinnamon.bsky.social in @booksandthearts.bsky.social on the history and future of close reading www.thenation.com/article/soci...

What is Close Reading? By transforming quotations into evidence, close reading served as way to transform postwar criticism into a specialized knowledge. But what if we treated it more as an art form?

I wrote about close reading. What it is, why it matters, and what John Guillory gets right and wrong in his recent On Close Reading. Offers a sneak peek of a little of what @johannawinant.bsky.social and I are up to in our forthcoming Close Reading for the 21C
www.thenation.com/article/soci...

Not a drill: *THE VIVIAN GORNICK* reviewed our new book “Going Around: Selected Journalism” by Murray Kempton, edited by Andrew Holter, for @thenation.com

I would say more broadly that as policy you really shouldn’t allow government officials to accuse people of *terrorism* anonymously.

Agnes Callard and the Examined Life In her new book, Callard makes the case that we should all live more philosophically but where does politics fit in?

"The very first line of Open Socrates admonishes the reader, “There is a question you are avoiding.” For Callard, that question is: Why are you living this way? But this only points to a host of questions that Callard herself avoids..."

me for @thenation.com

www.thenation.com/article/cult...

Donald Trump’s Long Con Trump’s “Art of” trilogy may be full of willful exaggeration but the books also reveal how the 1980s and 90s formed his dog-eat-dog worldview.

"You could call the business model Trump developed a kind of personality arbitrage." @lioneltrolling.bsky.social in @thenation.com's Spring Books on how the 1980s and 90s made Trump www.thenation.com/article/soci...

Donald Trump’s Long Con Trump’s “Art of” trilogy may be full of willful exaggeration but the books also reveal how the 1980s and 90s formed his dog-eat-dog worldview.

I read Donald Trump's books for @thenation.com www.thenation.com/article/soci...

The making and remaking of Capital. Epic piece by Alyssa Battistoni in latest @booksandthearts.bsky.social / @thenation.com on Marx’s masterpiece, the history of its translations, and what it means to read it today www.thenation.com/article/soci...

The Worlds of Noam Chomsky If ordinary Americans know one critic of the American Empire, it’s almost certainly Chomsky.

Daniel Bessner in the new @thenation.com on Chomsky and Nathan Robinson's The Myth of American Idealism and the politics of anti-imperialism www.thenation.com/article/cult...

What Do We Want From Bob Dylan’s Story? In James Mangold's film A Complete Unknown, we get a cautious and reverent story of a musician who has always sought to transcend the limits imposed upon him.

In "A Complete Unknown," James Mangold offers a faithful, reverent, and cautious account of a musician who always tried to be anything but these qualities.

The Worlds of Noam Chomsky If ordinary Americans know one critic of the American Empire, it’s almost certainly Chomsky.

Daniel Bessner in the new @thenation.com on Chomsky and Nathan Robinson's The Myth of American Idealism and the politics of anti-imperialism www.thenation.com/article/cult...

The Worlds of Noam Chomsky If ordinary Americans know one critic of the American Empire, it’s almost certainly Chomsky.

If the left ever hopes to change US foreign policy, it needs to move beyond the shibboleths of the past. We must stop fetishizing information politics and mass protests and instead must develop an institutionalist understanding of how state power functions.

www.thenation.com/article/cult...

David Montgomery and the Vitality of Labor History From his first book to his landmark account of the politics of the pre-WWI labor movement, Montgomery explored how people’s experiences of work shaped their political horizons.

“The study of history is a collective and cooperative endeavor, not a competition for personal academic eminence.”
—David Montgomery

www.thenation.com/article/soci...

The Worlds of Noam Chomsky If ordinary Americans know one critic of the American Empire, it’s almost certainly Chomsky.

Noam Chomsky is the most famous critic of US empire in the world. How have his views on empire and anti-imperialism change?

Fady Joudah’s Poetry of Dislocation In his new volume of poetry, […], the poet, translator, and ER doctor explores Palestinians’ experiences of exile and displacement as well as the difficulties of healing amid the protracted and ongoin...

"I write for the future / because my present is demolished. / I fly to the future / to retrieve my demolished present / as a legible past." Even in their silence, these poems call us to act. Hussein Omar in Books and the Arts @thenation.com on Fady Joudah www.thenation.com/article/cult...

The Brutalist and the Hidden Work of Architecture A film about survival, creativity, the hypocrisies of high art, The Brutalist tells a story about an architect who does not exploit and manipulate others to achieve his grand vision of the world but i...

"The Brutalist provides its audience with a window onto a side of architecture that is always lurking in the shadows: who makes it, and for whom." The always great @katewagner.bsky.social in @BooksandtheArts on why The Brutalist might be the best film of the year www.thenation.com/article/cult...

David Montgomery and the Vitality of Labor History From his first book to his landmark account of the politics of the pre-WWI labor movement, Montgomery explored how people’s experiences of work shaped their political horizons.

Kim Phillips-Fein in latest @BooksandtheArts on the incredible David Montgomery--his early radicalization, his years as a UE worker, his time in the CP, and his histories of work and the vital message they still impart www.thenation.com/article/soci...

What Happened to the Democratic Party? The squalid state of our present political institutions points to a failure of not just individuals but the system as a whole.

Where's the party? My latest (a review essay) for @thenation.com www.thenation.com/article/poli...

David Montgomery and the Vitality of Labor History From his first book to his landmark account of the politics of the pre-WWI labor movement, Montgomery explored how people’s experiences of work shaped their political horizons.

Really recommend this Kim Phillips-Fein essay on the life and legacy of the one and only, the legendary, David Montgomery www.thenation.com/article/soci...