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.

Oftentimes we find that the people on the other side of a hot-button issue are motivated by good reasoning and deeply held values. They are not the enemy.

America has published thousands of book reviews over 110 years...and some of them were more spot-on than others...