I have subscribed to this publication since 1979. Has it changed? Yes. Does it still represent about the best you are going to find in terms of political, cultural, legal and literary analysis you are going to find in the current media landscape? Yes.
Is it "too liberal"? Hardly. It's a testament to what has happened to the Overton window in American politics where basic, democratic ideals are now considered rabidly radical. To those that cannot stomach the "extreme leftist" politics of the magazine - that's OK. You always have Steve Bannon's podcast to listen to.
It is true that the heyday of the exacting editorial standards of the magazine have probably passed, but our society no longer values that sort of standard. When my father, who was born in 1928, first introduced me to the magazine in 1971, literary authors were the stars of his generation. Stylists like William Styron were on top of the literary conversation, and Gore Vidal wrote 20,000 word pieces about politics. Most of the people criticizing the publication today on the grounds of it's "leftist" point of view would become instantly apoplectic by reading the likes of Gore Vidal, if they could get through one of his essays. Nowadays, we have Twitter, or X or whatever the stupid platform is now called influencing the thought process and analysis of our society in a chaos of milliions of three-sentence "takes". So it's no surprise that this magazine takes the criticism I see here in these reviews and elsewhere. The miracle is that it still exists, and thank goodness for the benefactors who continue the "conversation", as Scorcese calls it.
Each issue contains such a wide variety of topics that I doubt there are many people who would read it cover to cover, but for curious people who are interested in a variety of topics will always find at least a few articles that are excellent.
Long live the NYR! I would like to see it remain alive long after I have passed, no matter what this country and world ends up becoming.
The New York Review of Books
4.3 | 433 ratings
Price: 3.49
Last update: 12-25-2024
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