A new book asks readers to understand Spinoza through cancel culture
Ian Buruma’s biography of the philosopher paints a vivid picture of the Netherlands of the 17th century, but ruins it with some talk of today
Ian Buruma
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Culture Men explain Anne Frank to me
The idea of Anne Frank surviving has been done, frankly, to death — almost always, by men.
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Culture Memo To A Sexist Editor: You Are Not A Martyr
In Ian Buruma’s eyes, there is something cruelly ironic about the circumstances of his departure from the New York Review of Books. As the broadsheet’s editor-in-chief, he had published Jian Ghomeshi’s essay “Reflections from a Hashtag,” in which a man accused by over 20 women of sexual assault meditated on how social media scorn had…
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The Schmooze Anton Yelchin’s Last Film, Ira Glass At RadioLoveFest And More To Read, Watch And Do This Weekend
Astonishingly, it’s nearly spring; Daylight Saving Time kicks in on Sunday, and it’s almost possible to imagine what it might be like to no longer be cold all the time. (Yes, it’s true that last year winter extended practically through May in New York. Nonetheless, sunshine is nigh!) If you aren’t quite ready to embrace the…
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Culture How Jews Found ‘Promised Land’ by Being British
Their Promised Land: My GrandParents in Love and war By Ian Buruma Penguin Press, 320 Pages, $27 Can one be both Jewish and British, or must one identity subsume the other? The critic and historian Ian Buruma tackles that perennially vexing question in “Their Promised Land: My Grandparents in Love and War,” his recently published…
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Life Jewish Conspiracy Theories All The Rage in Asia
Books that purport to chronicle world Jewry’s plot to rule the world are flying off shelves in China and Japan. Such conspiracy theories are also prevalent in Malaysia, the Philippines and, to some extent, throughout Asia, according to a recently published essay by the Anglo-Dutch writer Ian Buruma. But unlike standard-issue Western antisemitism — accusations…
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