Jane Jacobs's clear-eyed vision of humanity
Originally published February 3, 2017 in The Nation
In 1956, Jane Jacobs was 39 years old, working as a staff writer at Architectural Forum. Her boss, unable to attend a conference at Harvard, asked her to go in his stead and give a talk on land banking.
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Review of The Abundance: Narrative Essays Old and New, by Annie Dillard
Originally published June 6, 2022 in The Nation
For an epoch defined by mass attention-deficit disorder, Annie Dillard would seem to be the perfect antidote. Dillard, the author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (1974), is devoted to patience and to presence.
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Two Books on the Anthropocene
THEY WARNED US about this. In California, the future has arrived in the form of desiccated land, 100-degree autumn days, and freakish fires that burned more than 300,000 acres in 2015.
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Originally published Fall 2015 in Dissent
On August 12, twenty-one young Americans, led by the organization Our Children’s Trust, filed a lawsuit against the federal government. By now, President Obama is used to getting sued, but these were not his usual adversaries.
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Review of 'Giving Up Baby,' by Laury Oaks
Originally published September/October 2015 in Pacific Standard
On Christmas Eve, 2007, a blond woman in her late 30s arrived at St. Francis Hospital in Hartford, Connecticut, with a crying newborn in her arms. The woman had given birth alone at home and tied off the umbilical cord with a rubber band.
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