The New Republic

Before 2013 begins, catch up on the best of 2012. From now until the New Year, we will be re-posting some of The New Republic’s most thought-provoking pieces of the year. Enjoy. READ MORE >>

I have a dim view of the human mind's capacity for rational thought. Even so, I was struck by this old experiment, flagged by Robert Frank: READ MORE >>

READ MORE >>

Why Photography Matters as Art as Never Before By Michael Fried (Yale University Press, 409 pp., $55) I. READ MORE >>

In my review about the resurgence of Ayn Rand-ism on the right, I cited an op-ed by Cornell economist Robert Frank. I called Frank's central point, that luck plays a huge role in success, "seemingly banal." It occurs to me -- I haven't heard from Frank or anybody about this point -- that that line sounded dismissive. I didn't intend it that way at all. READ MORE >>

Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right By Jennifer Burns (Oxford University Press, 459 pp., $27.95) Ayn Rand and the World She Made By Anne C. Heller (Doubleday, 559 pp., $35)  I. READ MORE >>

This is kind of funny--from Robert Frank's defense of carbon offsets in today's New York Times: Yet carbon offsets have drawn sharp criticism, even ridicule. A British Web site called Cheat Neutral (www.cheatneutral.com) parodies the concept — by offering a service under which someone who wants to cheat on his partner can pay someone else who will refrain from committing an act of infidelity. READ MORE >>

Donald Judd had his share of staunch supporters. But you are likely to meet with skeptical responses if you announce that you are captivated by his magnum opus, a composition consisting of one hundred aluminum boxes that is the linchpin of the Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas. Chinati is where the sculptor made a permanent home for the frequently large-scale work that interested him and some of the contemporary artists whom he admired. It has an eccentric, off-the-beaten-track kind of grandeur that rubs some people the wrong way. The austere forms that Judd (who died in 1994) arranged in READ MORE >>