The nation’s nonfiction bard, Michael Lewis, makes the case that our government is more important—and competent—than we realize.

For decades, Lopez has sought to re-establish our ethical relationships with the land and the other creatures who dwell on it. But Lopez, like many authors, struggles against labels.

April 14 was the 80th anniversary of the publication of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, the greatest social novel of the 20th century.

Rather than framing moral philosophy as just another form of epistemology (how can we know what to do?), Iris Murdoch was asking a more classical question: “How can we make ourselves morally better?” she asks. “These are the questions the philosopher should try to answer.”

Looking back on sports stories designed to educate a certain class of white American male into the virtues of postwar civic culture.