Today in The New York Review of Books: Scott W. Stern on a history of a women’s prison written by the prisoners; Dorothy Sue Cobble on home work; Adam Thirlwell on home art; Thea Riofrancos on the lithium problem; and, from the archives, T. H. Breen on the Republic of Vermont.
Scott W. Stern
Writing Their Prison’s History
A recent study by a group of incarcerated scholars at Indiana Women’s Prison reveals how progressive reforms turned into profitable abuse.
Dorothy Sue Cobble
I Stand Here Ironing
At a moment of unparalleled assault on state social services, a new book recovers the daring ideas of a movement that struggled to win compensation for domestic workers and caregivers in the home.
Thea Riofrancos
What’s Underground
Lithium, an essential ingredient in rechargeable batteries, epitomizes the contradictions of “green capitalism.”
Adam Thirlwell
When and Where Is Home?
The South Korean artist Do Ho Suh’s replicas of places he has lived are extraordinary feats of magical engineering.
Free from the Archives
Two hundred and fifty years ago today, Ethan Allen, a land speculator and proud Vermonter who just that spring had led his Green Mountain Boys in the capture of Fort Ticonderoga, was himself captured by the British while attempting to take Montreal.
When Allen was finally released three years later, he returned to what had become in his absence the Republic of Vermont—“an extraordinarily egalitarian society,” as T. H. Breen wrote in the Review’s April 5, 2012, issue—and endeavored to gain the region official statehood by expelling the “New York Malcontents” who hoped to claim the territory for their own state.
T. H. Breen
The Vigilantes of Vermont
In 1777 Vermonters declared themselves citizens of an independent republic and ratified one of the most liberal, egalitarian constitutions in American history. How did a populist movement led by a violent, charismatic figure give birth to a stable democratic society?
Recently in the Review
Trevor Jackson
How to Blow Up a Planet
“Since 2016 the Democratic Party has consisted of two things: the Sanders left and efforts to defeat it. Abundance is the latest effort, a closed parenthesis in the halfhearted sentence of contemporary liberalism.”
Hari Kunzru
Surviving the Manosphere
“The confluence of crypto, fitness, right-wing populism, and misogyny is not accidental. This is a culture that sees all human relations as forms of hypercapitalist competition.”
Is America Abandoning Immigrants?
Mass Deportation and Resistance
Tonight at 5:00 PM EDT
The New York Review of Books presents a series of online talks hosted by our Advising Editor, Fintan O’Toole. For our first fall event, New York Review contributors Francisco Cantú, Caroline Moorehead, and Julia Preston join O’Toole for a wide-ranging conversation about America’s treatment of immigrants. The event is pay-what-you-wish.
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