Blunders and Imperfections
Understanding the Suez Canal; Foucault and Roth under fire; optimizing children; and the politics of corporate America
Public Seminar is free: we publish 5 days a week, and put out an issue every Thursday. Do you know someone who would be interested in joining our community of readers? Please—
Diagram of the Suez Canal in the year it opened, 1869. Image credit: Wikimedia Commons
History Reconsidered
Aaron Jakes, “The World the Suez Canal Made: When the container ship Ever Given became wedged in this Egyptian passage, it highlighted global capitalism but hid its uneven origins and benefits.” (April 2, 2021)
Books
Mitch Abidor, “Why Phillip Roth is a Great Jewish and a Great American Novelist: A new biography captures the whole man—his kindnesses, his pettiness and his prickeries.” (April 6, 2021)
Catherine Liu, “The PMC Has Children: The Case against the Professional Managerial Class.” (April 8, 2021)
Politics
Sion Bell, “Biden Must Fire IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig: Trump cronies have no place in the new administration.” (April 8, 2021)
Helmut Smith, “Why Weimar is an Imperfect Mirror: Its polarized culture reinforced the destructive energy of an increasingly polarized politics.” (April 8, 2021)
Philosophy
James Miller and Andres Gómez Bravo, “Why We Shouldn’t Cancel Foucault: Even if he did have sex with underage boys in a Tunisian cemetery in the Sixties.” (April 8, 2021)
Columnists
Garofalo, “How States Can Reign in Big Tech and Encourage Entrepreneurs: When it comes to the App store, Apple and Google need to be reined in.” (April 8, 2021)
Heather Cox Richardson, “Is Corporate America Rebuking the Republican Party? Georgia’s voting rights laws are forcing unlikely alliances between the Democrats and Big Business.” (April 6, 2021)
John Stoehr, “Don’t Dismiss Mitch McConnell’s ‘Warning’ to Corporations: It reflects larger, historical forces at work.” (April 7, 2021)
You are invited: