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Friday, January 9

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‘Regime Influence’: Trump’s Foreign-Policy Third Way

How the President charted a course between Tucker Carlson and Mark Levin

College Football’s New World Order

Ole Miss. Indiana. Miami. Oregon. Sweeping changes to college football were supposed to make the sport’s historic powers more powerful. Something else happened instead.

The Lost Art of Reading an Actual Book
Michael Sebastian, Esquire
Did 'Stranger Things' Stick the Landing?
Nadira Goffe, Slate
Amanda Seyfried Is in Her Element
Claire Messud, Vogue
Pride and Ping Pong
Jack Hunter, Modern Age
A Dose of Civic Realism
Judge Glock, Law & Liberty
The Visual Turn
Paula Marantz Cohen, The American Scholar
TikTok’s Incomplete Story
Erin Schwartz, The Nation
The Technology Brothers Have Silicon Valley in Their Thrall
Julia Black, Vanity Fair
Meritocracy at Johns Hopkins?
Wai Wah Chin, City Journal
Mama Tried
Madeleine Watts, The Baffler
Defining the Anti-Erotic
Magdalene J. Taylor, Many Such Cases
Planned Man's Links of the Day
Podcast: Battle of the Memes (Part II) by The Everyman
Available this week: "Writer's Diary" by Matthew Gasda
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American Civics

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Essential Reading

David McCullough and the Study of History
One of the greatest weeks of my life was the week David McCullough came to teach a one-credit course at Hillsdale College in 2006.
Liberal Education as Civic Education
At the heart of the Western intellectual tradition is the claim that the liberal arts aim to make a man free.

In the News

Multimedia

Why Civics Education Is America’s New Flashpoin
The Long Road to Juneteenth
Lincoln’s Prophetic Statesmanship with Edward Erler

Censorship

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Essential Reading

May Aliens Be Deported Based on Their Speech?
The answer, oddly, isn't settled.
The COVID-era Smearing—and Resurrection—of Trump NIH Appointee Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
Bhattacharya’s path from health policy scholar to NIH director nominee is pockmarked with craters from missiles launched to destroy his scientific credibility by NIH leaders and their minions in academia.

In the News

Multimedia

Zuckerberg Ending Censorship on Facebook: "The Fact-Checkers Have Just Been Too Politically Biased"
John Kerry Tells WEF: Our First Amendment Stands As A Major Block Against Hammering Disinformation Out of Existence
House Committee Rips State Department Over Censorship

More From Real Clear

Myths from the Earth's Edge
DJ Casper's 'Cha Cha Slide'
The Bridge Scene from William Friedkin's "Sorcerer"
"The French Connection" Car Chase

RealClearBooks Thursday

Curt Cignetti Taught Indiana Football How to Dream

The Hoosiers had long accepted their fate as a college football laughingstock. Then came the head coach who changed everything—and the transformation of a fan base that’s discovering what a run like this can mean.

Can Women’s Soccer in the U.S. Keep Up?

The ability of the National Women’s Soccer League to retain Trinity Rodman, one of its biggest stars, could determine its future.

'Industry' Blew Up the Bank—Then Got Right Back to Work
Daniel Riley, GQ
The 45 Most Anticipated Movies of 2026
Max Cea, Esquire
The Bleak History of the American Work Ethic
Nick Juravich, The Nation
The Unexpected Charm of Is This Thing On?
Annie Berke, The New Republic
Shakespeare and the City
Matthew Gasda, First Things
My Playdate With the Watch Nerds
Steven Phillips-Horst, The Cut
Marty Supreme Lives Up to the Hype
Spencer Neale, The American Conservative
Jane Austen’s Persuasion: Conscious Love
Sam Buntz, The Muted Trumpet
Socialism Is a Hate Crime
James Piereson, The New Criterion
The Risky, Wild Fun of Launching a Literary Publication
Sadie Bell, Marie Claire
Here Comes the AI Backlash
Christopher Caldwell, The Free Press
What to Read to Understand Bowie
Alexander Larman, The Observer

‘Regime Influence’: Trump’s Foreign-Policy Third Way

How the President charted a course between Tucker Carlson and Mark Levin

College Football’s New World Order

Ole Miss. Indiana. Miami. Oregon. Sweeping changes to college football were supposed to make the sport’s historic powers more powerful. Something else happened instead.

The Lost Art of Reading an Actual Book

Michael Sebastian, Esquire

It was just after 5:00 a.m., and I was wide-awake in a hotel in Rome. Jet lag, certainly. I grabbed my phone, responded to a few messages,... Read More

Did 'Stranger Things' Stick the Landing?

Nadira Goffe, Slate

In 2016, when the world was first introduced to Stranger Things—the Duffer brothers’ hit Netflix fantasy adventure that follows a... Read More

Amanda Seyfried Is in Her Element

Claire Messud, Vogue

We meet, at Amanda Seyfried’s suggestion, in the middle of nowhere. That’s to say, we meet at a discreet and casually elegant... Read More

Pride and Ping Pong

Jack Hunter, Modern Age

It’s 1952 New York, and Marty Mauser will not be denied. Mauser is a ping-pong street hustler who aspires to become a table tennis... Read More

A Dose of Civic Realism

Judge Glock, Law & Liberty

Some of the bestselling nonfiction books published in 1970 include David Reuben’s Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex but... Read More

The Visual Turn

Paula Marantz Cohen, The American Scholar

I began to paint in 2023, soon after I turned 70. At an age when I am rarely surprised, I feel I am channeling a new creative impulse while... Read More

TikTok’s Incomplete Story

Erin Schwartz, The Nation

TikTok’s adoption in the United States in 2018 marked a vibe shift in American culture. In the app’s early days, everyone’s... Read More

The Technology Brothers Have Silicon Valley in Their Thrall

Julia Black, Vanity Fair

It was 4 p.m. on a Thursday, and the Technology Brothers had a gong problem. John Coogan and Jordi Hays had just wrapped a taping of their... Read More

Meritocracy at Johns Hopkins?

Wai Wah Chin, City Journal

As the nation approaches its 250th anniversary, Johns Hopkins University reminds us why people from all corners of the globe still yearn to... Read More

Mama Tried

Madeleine Watts, The Baffler

When I found out I was pregnant last May, I commenced a program of reading. I needed to know what was coming. During the six months that I... Read More

Defining the Anti-Erotic

Magdalene J. Taylor, Many Such Cases

I’m sorry that I’ve been away for the last month. Half of it was procrastination, and the other half was warranted. I don’t... Read More

American Civics

Sponsored Curation Powered By:

Essential Reading

David McCullough and the Study of History
One of the greatest weeks of my life was the week David McCullough came to teach a one-credit course at Hillsdale College in 2006.
Liberal Education as Civic Education
At the heart of the Western intellectual tradition is the claim that the liberal arts aim to make a man free.

In the News

Multimedia

Why Civics Education Is America’s New Flashpoin
The Long Road to Juneteenth
Lincoln’s Prophetic Statesmanship with Edward Erler

Censorship

Sponsored Curation Powered By:

Essential Reading

May Aliens Be Deported Based on Their Speech?
The answer, oddly, isn't settled.
The COVID-era Smearing—and Resurrection—of Trump NIH Appointee Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
Bhattacharya’s path from health policy scholar to NIH director nominee is pockmarked with craters from missiles launched to destroy his scientific credibility by NIH leaders and their minions in academia.

In the News

Multimedia

Zuckerberg Ending Censorship on Facebook: "The Fact-Checkers Have Just Been Too Politically Biased"
John Kerry Tells WEF: Our First Amendment Stands As A Major Block Against Hammering Disinformation Out of Existence
House Committee Rips State Department Over Censorship

More From Real Clear

Myths from the Earth's Edge
DJ Casper's 'Cha Cha Slide'
The Bridge Scene from William Friedkin's "Sorcerer"
"The French Connection" Car Chase

RealClearBooks Thursday

Curt Cignetti Taught Indiana Football How to Dream

The Hoosiers had long accepted their fate as a college football laughingstock. Then came the head coach who changed everything—and the transformation of a fan base that’s discovering what a run like this can mean.

Can Women’s Soccer in the U.S. Keep Up?

The ability of the National Women’s Soccer League to retain Trinity Rodman, one of its biggest stars, could determine its future.

'Industry' Blew Up the Bank—Then Got Right Back to Work

Daniel Riley, GQ

Last we left Industry, the acclaimed HBO series about the London office of an illustrious American bank, the illustrious bank in question had... Read More

The 45 Most Anticipated Movies of 2026

Max Cea, Esquire

In recent years, there’s one word you hear again and again from movie distributors and pundits: event. Making a great movie is nice.... Read More

The Bleak History of the American Work Ethic

Nick Juravich, The Nation

What is a “work ethic”? In its most common usage, the phrase connotes a personal quality: the capacity and enthusiasm for hard... Read More

The Unexpected Charm of Is This Thing On?

Annie Berke, The New Republic

What is an “art monster”? Jenny Offill popularized the term in her 2014 debut novel, Dept. of Speculation, in which a youthful... Read More

Shakespeare and the City

Matthew Gasda, First Things

Recently I checked into a pleasant, fairly sterile Marriott in Shoreditch ahead of my London debut as a playwright. Today, the streets are... Read More

My Playdate With the Watch Nerds

Steven Phillips-Horst, The Cut

The Temple of Dendur would be a great set for a disaster movie, I’ve always thought. Maybe an asteroid hits the city. Or a Russian... Read More

Marty Supreme Lives Up to the Hype

Spencer Neale, The American Conservative

Marty Supreme is not a film about ping pong. Technically, it’s a film about table tennis. But at its core, Supreme is really a film... Read More

Jane Austen’s Persuasion: Conscious Love

Sam Buntz, The Muted Trumpet

Whenever I heard someone say, “I wasn’t ready for that book in high school,” I used to smile inwardly. Smugly. I was sure... Read More

Socialism Is a Hate Crime

James Piereson, The New Criterion

It is remarkable that, despite its long record of failure, socialism is now more popular than ever among college students and in progressive... Read More

The Risky, Wild Fun of Launching a Literary Publication

Sadie Bell, Marie Claire

Like many people during the pandemic, writers Anika Jade Levy and Madeline Cash were craving community. The longtime... Read More

Here Comes the AI Backlash

Christopher Caldwell, The Free Press

Anyone who doubts that a populist disquiet is brewing against artificial intelligence should look at Ron DeSantis. There are many reasons the... Read More

What to Read to Understand Bowie

Alexander Larman, The Observer

Three books that explore the life, literary tastes and larkiness of the enigmatic starman Read More

Movies

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

The New Yorker

There are no guilty pleasures in childhood. It is only as an adult that I feel a certain sheepishness when recalling one of my favorite picture books, “Ann Likes Red,” by Dorothy Z. Seymour, which was originally published in 1965. Wedged between the vaunted volumes of Gorey and Scarry, “Ann Likes Red” stuck out both literally, for its squat stature, and literarily, for its hazy lesson in s... Read More

more from Movies

Music

Haim Sets Off on a Rampage

The New Yorker

This month, Haim—a three-piece rock band from Los Angeles, featuring the sisters Danielle, Alana, and Este Haim—will release “I Quit,” its fourth album and a carnal, sure-footed rebuttal of the idea that our lives should orbit around some eternal romantic commitment. Haim has always been interested in the ways that relationships transform, burn out, or begin anew; the band’s best songs a... Read More

more from Music

Television

AI Anxiety Is Plaguing Our TV Shows

Esquire

Greetings from Copenhagen! I’m currently visiting my sister, who moved out here a little over two years ago—right around when The Bear sent Marcus the pastry chef (Lionel Boyce) to travel around the city and learn about fancy pastries. After I interviewed Boyce that season, he pointed me to a hole-in-the-wall fried chicken joint called Poulette that he filmed a scene in for the show—and it... Read More

Television

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