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Things Worth Remembering
The Free Press presents great literary treasures—from William Shakespeare to David Foster Wallace and beyond—that we should commit to heart.
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Niall Ferguson: The World Cup Looks Like a Fiesta of Nationalism. Don’t Be Fooled.
When U.S. sports fans go to a ball game, they are pursuing happiness. But, as Nick Hornby explained in ‘Fever Pitch,’ soccer is entertainment as pain.
Niall Ferguson
Mike Pence: Conservatives Have Forgotten What They Believe
Republicans are reshaping conservatism in Donald Trump's image—and not always in positive ways. Barry Goldwater’s ‘The Conscience of a Conservative…
Mike Pence
The Ghost of ‘Dreyfus’ Hits the Stage in New York
Bernard-Henri Lévy reflects on Jean-Claude Grumberg’s haunting play about antisemitism, memory, and political hysteria—and why its warnings now feel…
Bernard-Henri Lévy
War, Memory, and the Sons We Lose
As Memorial Day arrives, Herman Wouk’s ‘War and Remembrance’ remains a powerful reminder that history survives only when we can still imagine the people…
Aaron MacLean
What Christopher Nolan Has to Get Right About the ‘Odyssey’
The hardest thing to capture about the poem is also the key to its enduring greatness.
Spencer Klavan
Back When the Pulitzer Meant Something
In the years before winning the Pulitzer became an exercise in ideological performance, writers like Jimmy Breslin captured the nation’s soul.
Liel Leibovitz
Plato’s Cave and the Rise of the Highly Educated Radical
Professors have taught generations of students to reduce individuals to the flat abstractions of identity groups, politics to zero-sum relations of…
Jacob Howland
How ‘City on a Hill’ Became ‘America First’
The U.S.’s founding ideal emphasized mercy, humility, and mutual obligation. Its modern counterpart does much the opposite.
Lydia Dugdale
The Past Wasn’t Inherently Better. So Why Does It Feel That Way?
A 12th-century Japanese poem captures the paradox of nostalgia: We don’t miss the past as it was—we miss it as we remember it.
Spencer Klavan
Motherhood Wasn’t the Interruption I Expected It to Be
Every day, I kiss my daughter’s curls and thank my lucky stars that I had the privilege to take an early detour.
Solveig Lucia Gold
Why We Still Choose to Go to the Moon
In 1962, President John F. Kennedy said that we choose to go to the moon not because it is easy, but because it is hard. More than 60 years later…
Joe Nocera
‘Hannah Montana’ Understood the Internet Before We Did
My generation grew up watching Miley Cyrus defend her private life from her public identity. Then social media made that very dilemma our own.
Sascha Seinfeld
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