This month, one of the greatest rock albums ever made, Bruce Springsteen‘s Born To Run, turns 45. To celebrate this occasion, I recently asked my editor, “How about I rank my favorite Bruce Springsteen songs?” Unfortunately for both of us, he immediately said “sure!” If either one of us had thought…

Secrets of American History Inside the little-known story of the Green Corn Rebellion, which blazed through the Sooner State a century ago Richard Grant; Photographs by Trevor Paulhus October 2019 Get our newsletter! Get our newsletter! The type of socialism that took root in Oklahoma was unique—it…

It is one of Hollywood’s most iconic images: a lawman walking down a deserted Western street toward a showdown with four armed killers. For more than 60 years, High Noon, starring Gary Cooper, has embedded itself in our culture and our national memory. Its title itself has become legendary,…

On March 21, 1617, a 21-year-old woman from Virginia’s Pamunkey tribe died at Gravesend, England. She went by many names—Matoaka, Amonute, and, at her passing, Rebecca—but she’s best remembered today as Pocahontas. Her death was unexpected: Pocahontas had arrived in England the previous June and…

Visit us on Threads! Opens External Webpage Visit us on Bluesky! Opens External Webpage Mail to Print page Submit a letter: Email us letters@nybooks.com Reviewed: The Revenge of Analog: Real Things and Why They Matter by David Sax PublicAffairs, 282 pp., $25.99 Everyone I know seems a little ashamed…

For over two decades, residents near Maine’s North Pond, about 75 miles west of Bangor, were victims of one the strangest crime sprees in US history. Their homes were repeatedly burglarized, but valuables were never stolen. Instead, the thief took canned food, batteries, paperback novels, propane…

Building the Hoover Dam rerouted the most powerful river in North America. It claimed the lives of 96 workers, and the beloved site dog, Little Niggy, who is entombed by the walkway in the shade of th

FOR SALE: Largest ranch in the U.S. within a single fence. Texas fixer-upper with more than 1,000 oil wells; 6,800 head of cattle; 500 quarter horses; 30,000 acres of cropland; tombstones for legendary cowboys, long-dead dogs, and a horse buried standing up. Favorite of Will Rogers and Teddy…

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as the frontier became the border, the United States expanded its notions of what an American empire should encompass in terms of ideas and territory. This growing imperial dragnet ensnared elite Nicaraguans with modernizing dreams, a savvy…

COWBOY Christmas ’Tis the season when pro rodeo riders punish their bodies and endure endless miles of bad road and worse food for just eight seconds on the back of an angry horse, with no guaranteed

People never find it easy to confront the past; they generally prefer to consign it to oblivion. In today’s society, the model citizen is too often one without memory. Complex events are simplified; history is coarsened and turned into a species of exorcism and kitsch. This is especially true…

The Writing Life January 6, 2013 I had done all the research I was going to do, assembled enough material to fill a silo. And now I had no idea what to do with it.Construction by Stephen Doyle / Photograph by Grant Cornett Out the back door and under the big ash was a picnic table. At the end of…

Page-Turner May 22, 2013 Recently, a colleague mentioned that she had been rereading Richard Hughes’s “A High Wind in Jamaica,” which was first published in 1929 and is about a group of creepy little kids who become the unwanted wards of sad, listless pirates. She praised it, and her recommendation…

What it was was a generational shift, and not one that Music Row wanted. In the late sixties, Nashville country music was defined by the string-swelling, countrypolitan gloss of Tammy Wynette and Glen

Timothy Egan on American politics and life, as seen from the West. A packet of letters arrived the other day from the honors English class at St. Lawrence School in Brasher Falls, N.Y. Snail mail, from high school sophomores? Yes, and honest, witty and insightful snail mail at that. They had been…

Children playing near a hillside gravel mine found the first graves. One ran home to tell his mother, who was skeptical at first—until the boy produced a skull. Related Content Meet the Real-Life Vamp

On September 30, 1982, NBC premiered a new sitcom called Cheers , a smartly written show about a bar owned by a retired relief pitcher named Sam Malone. Created by director James Burrows and writer-pr

John McPhee, ca. 2009. Photograph courtesy of the Princeton University Office of Communications. John Angus McPhee was born in Princeton, New Jersey, in 1931, attended college in his hometown, and sti

Nearly half a century ago, when Elvis Presley was filming “Harum Scarum” and “Help!” was on the charts, a moody, father-haunted, yet uncannily charismatic Shore rat named Bruce Springsteen was buildin

Enlarge this image Bruce Springsteen onstage during the Born in the USA tour in 1985. Richard E. Aaron/Redferns hide caption toggle caption Richard E. Aaron/Redferns Bruce Springsteen onstage during t

The first time I met Robin van Persie was at his home in the old Rotterdam neighbourhood of Jaffa. Robin was 19 and he lived with his father, the artist Bob van Persie. On the walls of the living-room were some of Bob’s collages of Feyenoord – Robin’s club at the time – and their stadium. On the…

Mark Twain in bed “For a lazy man I’m extremely industrious.” —William Dean Howells All writers have some secret about the way they work. Mine is that I write in bed. Big deal!, you are probably think

This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. Distribution and use of this material are governed byour Subscriber Agreement and by copyright law. For non-personal use or to order multiple c

Egan

What would you say to those readers who dismiss horror, who would take one look at the cover and not bother even picking it up? First of all, they may have read some and nor realised. For instance, th

A Dream, a Temptation, and the Longest Night of the Second World War The Bomber Mafia Malcolm Gladwell’s exploration of how technology and best intentions collide in the heat of war Learn More Buy the

In the ninth year of my exile, one sullen day in the winter of 1982, the phone rang in our house in Bethesda, Maryland. When I heard the voice on the other end of the line, I tried to control my panic

Subscriber Only Sign in or Subscribe Now for audio version Whither goest thou, America, in thy shiny car in the night? – Jack Kerouac Each generation reimagines the allure of the unknown world, and re

A litany of scandals in recent years have made the corruption of college sports constant front-page news. We profess outrage each time we learn that yet another student-athlete has been taking money under the table. But the real scandal is the very structure of college sports, wherein…

I WRITE on a manual typewriter, but don't bug me about it, okay? I know that recently certain machines have been developed that produce manuscripts more efficiently than a manual typewriter ever could

J ohn Phillip Walker Lindh, my son, was raised a Roman Catholic, but converted to Islam when he was 16 years old. He has an older brother and a younger sister. John is scholarly and devout, devoted to

In Llano, in the middle of the Southern California high desert, a bewhiskered Jacques Dupuis stands in front of what was once his home. His laid-back second wife, Marcelle, her long, silver hair blowing in the breeze, takes a drag on her Marlboro Red as they walk inside and, in thick French Canadian…