The New York Review of Books (2022-01-13)

Contents

4 Fara Dabhoiwala Accidental Gods: On Men Unwittingly Turned Divine by Anna Della Subin

8 Susan Tallman Jasper Johns: Mind /Mirror an exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Whitney

Museum of American Art, New York City

Catalog of the exhibition by Carlos Basualdo and Scott Rothkopf

11 James McAuley Who Does Éric Zemmour Speak For?

15 Anahid Nersessian The End of Love: A Sociology of Negative Relations by Eva Illouz

17 James Shapiro The Tragedy of Macbeth a film written and directed by Joel Coen

19 E. Tammy Kim Palimpsest: Documents from a Korean Adoption by Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom

Older Sister. Not Necessarily Related. by Jenny Heijun Wills

All You Can Ever Know by Nicole Chung

22 Geoffrey O’Brien Eurydice an opera by Matthew Aucoin, with a libretto by Sarah Ruhl, at the Metropolitan Opera,

New York City

The Impossible Art: Adventures in Opera by Matthew Aucoin

23 Cyrus Console Poem

24 Anne Enright Dubliners: Ulysses at 100

26 Sean Wilentz Liberty Is Sweet: The Hidden History of the American Revolution by Woody Holton

American Republics: A Continental History of the United States, 1783 –1850 by Alan Taylor

29 Rivka Galchen Raymie Nightingale by Kate DiCamillo

Louisiana’s Way Home by Kate DiCamillo

Beverly, Right Here by Kate DiCamillo

34 Andrew Martin James Castle: Memory Palace by John Beardsley

36 Caroline Fraser My First Thirty Years by Gertrude Beasley, with a foreword by Nina Bennett

Pity the Beast by Robin McLean

38 Maya C. Popa Poem

39 Dan Rockmore 99 Variations on a Proof by Philip Ording

42 Ian Frazier We Had a Little Real Estate Problem: The Unheralded Story of Native Americans in Comedy

by Kliph Nesteroff

The Comedians: Drunks, Thieves, Scoundrels and the History of American Comedy

by Kliph Nesteroff

46 Nathan Whitlock Yellow Notebook: Diaries Volume I, 1978 –1987 by Helen Garner

One Day I’ll Remember This: Diaries Volume II, 1987–1995 by Helen Garner

49 Fintan O’Toole ‘Arum Arum Araaaaaagh’: Boris Johnson’s Wild Ride

55 Gary Saul Morson To Break Russia’s Chains: Boris Savinkov and His Wars Against the Tsar and the Bolsheviks

by Vladimir Alexandrov

Pale Horse: A Novel of Revolutionary Russia by Boris Savinkov, translated from the Russian

by Michael R. Katz and with an introduction by Otto Boele

58 Jacqueline Rose The Subversive Simone Weil: A Life in Five Ideas by Robert Zaretsky

61 Kwame Anthony Appiah The Roots of Inequality: An Exchange with David Wengrow

CONTRIBUTORS

Maya Chung and Lucy Jakub, Associate Editors; Nawal Arjini and Willa Glickman, Assistant Editors; Sable Gravesandy and Anacaona Rodriguez Martinez,

Editorial Interns; Sylvia Lonergan, Researcher; Will Palmer, Copyeditor; Daniel Drake, Production Editor; Will Simpson, Type Production; Kazue Jensen,

Production; Maryanne Chaney, Web Production Coordinator; Sharmaine Ong, Advertising Associate; Nicholas During, Publicity; Nancy Ng, Design Director; Janice

Fellegara, Director of Marketing and Planning; Janis Harden, Fulfillment Director; Andrea Moore, Assistant Circulation Manager; Matthew Howard, Editorial

Director, Digital; Angela Hederman, Special Projects; Diane R. Seltzer, Office Manager; Patrick Hederman, Rights; Max Margenau, Comptroller; Vanity Luciano,

Assistant Accountant; Teddy Wright, Receptionist.

nybooks.com: Matt Seaton, Editor

On the cover: Mamma Andersson, Headless Man in Jacket, 2015. © Mamma Andersson/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/Bildupphovsrätt, Sweden. Courtesy of the

artist, Stephen Friedman Gallery, London, and David Zwirner. Photo by Mark Blower. The artworks on pages 8, 9, and 10 are © 2021 Jasper Johns/VAG A at Artists Rights

Society (ARS), New York.

The New York Review of Books (ISSN 0028-7504), published 20 times a year, monthly in January, July, August, and September; semi-monthly in February, March, April,

May, June, October, November, and December. NYREV, Inc., 435 Hudson Street, Suite 300, New York, NY 10014-3994. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY 10001

and at additional offices. Canada Post Corp. Sales Agreement #40031306. Postmaster: Send address changes to The New York Review of Books, P.O. Box 9310, Big Sandy,

TX 75755-9310. Subscription services: http://www.nybooks.com/customerservice, or e-mail [email protected], or call 800-354-0050 in the US, 903-636-1101 elsewhere.

Editor: Emily Greenhouse

Deputy Editor: Michael Shae

Executive Editor: Jana Prikryl

Senior Editors: Eve Bowen, Julie Just, Andrew Katzenstein, Hasan Altaf

Contributing Editors: Prudence Crowther, Gabriel Winslow-Yost

Art Editor: Leanne Shapton

Founding Editors : Robert B. Silvers (1929–2017)

Barbara Epstein (1928–2006)

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Associate Publisher, Business Operations: Michael King

Advertising Director: Lara Frohlich Andersen

Editor-at-Large: Daniel Mendelsohn

What’s new on

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No Property in Man : Slav-

ery and Antislavery at the Nation’s Founding

Ŷ Anastasia Edel : A Taste of Old Soviet Home

Ŷ Nicole Rudick: Rosemary Mayer’s Fabric Art

Ŷ Joyce Johnson : The Aftershocks of Pearl Harbor

Ŷ Lawrence Lessig: Our Failed Democratic State

Plus : Haunting tales from Eduardo Halfon, Irina Dumitrescu on learning Old English, and more...

JACOB MCHANGAMA

FREE SPEECH

A History from Socrates

to Social Media

“The best history of free speech

ever written and the best defense

of free speech ever made.”

—P.J. O’ROURKE

“A lot of people now claim that

free speech is a danger to

democracy or social inclusion.

In this vital book, which is as

entertaining as it is erudite,

Jacob Mchangama shows why

that is dead wrong.”

—YASCHA MOUNK,

author of The Great Experiment

“Jacob Mchangama’s panoramic 

exploration of the history of free

speech off ers a vivid, highly

readable account of how today’s

most pitched battles over free

speech refl ect tensions and

impulses that are as old as

history itself.”

—SUZANNE NOSSEL,

CEO of PEN America

basicbooks.com

CLEAR AND

PRESENT

DANGER

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