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Giving Shakespeare the Tough Love He Deserves

John Douglas Thompson The New York Times Book Review
In “The Great White Bard,” Farah Karim-Cooper maintains that close attention to race, and racism, will only deepen engagement with the playwright’s canon.

The Gender of Capital

Khushbu Sharma LSE Review of Books
In this book, writes reviewer Sharma, the authors argue that despite supposed equality, women in all classes of society are economically disadvantaged with respect to their husbands, fathers, and brothers.

Poetry, Biography, and the Unknowable

Hollis Robbins Los Angeles Review of Books
These books offer two approaches to the life and work of Wheatley, who is a cornerstone figure of the U.S. and African American literary traditions.

A Syrian Epic

Marcel Theroux The Guardian
Set against the tumultuous backdrop of modern Syria’s birth pangs, this saga of friendship, freedom and tragedy celebrates Aleppo’s lost past.

How Jeremy Corbyn Was Toppled by the Israel Lobby

Michael Steven Smith Mondoweiss
Asa Winstanley's new book shows how the Israel lobby weaponized antisemitism to create a new McCarthyism to bring down Jeremy Corbyn and those building a genuine socialist Labour Party.

The Writers Who Went Undercover To Show America Its Ugly Side

Samuel G. Freedman The Atlantic
In the 1940s, a series of books tried to use the conventions of detective fiction to expose the degree of prejudice in postwar America. Their books — along with Sinatra’s song and film; Richard Wright’s memoir, coincided with a surge of activism.

Why Crack Became the 1980s ‘Superdrug’

Jonathan Green The New York Times Book Review
This book "offers a fresh history of the epidemic that gripped minority communities, inflamed media coverage and led to draconian drug laws."