Portside

Why should we care about historical biopics such as HBO’s mini-series Gunpowder? Is it because it stars Kit Harington—the heartthrob Jon Snow of Game of Thrones fame? Is it because of its message of religious bigotry and violence?

Kim Shuck, current poet laureate of San Francisco, explores the complications-- mixed-up heritages, commercial indifference—of seeing the “Great Urban Indian Poem published “because culture is at its/Root not something that can be sold by chain stores.”

The book traces the myriad links between the far right, from Fox News, Tea Party activists, militia supporters, new media trolls, White Nationalists, resurgent Klan members and self-proclaimed Nazis to Donald Trump, where each piggybacks on the rest in honing messages and growing their influence. While the author spends little time referencing left and progressive forces opposing the right's resurgence, his work is exhaustive in researching the phenomena.

Biographer Chernow "gives us a military genius who understood the full scope of the war and pursued a winning strategy," writes reviewer Richard Moe, "and a sometimes inept president who, though unschooled in politics, made his highest priority the protection of the lives and rights of freed slaves."

A new Johns Hopkins University study finds that junk food images are almost twice as distracting as healthy food images.

With a theatrical adaptation opening in London, and a planned CBS revival helmed by Jordan Peele, what can the Rod Serling anthology series say about modern life?

The Australian poet Joyce Parkes brings us the word “swags,” meaning the bedding rolls used by homeless persons, asking why in a wealthy country so many remain homeless.

Once a year we appeal to you to contribute to make it possible to continue this work. Please help. It's been an extraordinary year. A year of unparalleled dangers, which we won't dwell on, as you know them well. Because information is power, we are always trying to make what we present easy to read. We hope you like what you see - the new upgraded Portside.

A survey of the life, work and associations of the late New York Review of Books editor Elizabeth Hardwick, the transplanted Southerner who became a writer of note among the literary and political circles comprising the New York Intellectuals of the pre- and postwar period, she had a knack for illustrating what might have been called feminist themes by way of specific details of specific lives.

Starring Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep as Ben Bradlee and Katharine Graham, this drama about the Washington Post is squarely aimed at our current moment. The movie, written by Liz Hannah and Josh Singer, sprouts from this rift between the true state of affairs and the alternative facts that are presented to the public. As is common knowledge, it was Ellsberg’s conscience about the rift that led him to steal—or, if you prefer, to liberate—a hulking stash of incriminating documents, which came to be called the Pentagon Papers.