Boston Review: 7 books

Stories, essays, and interviews explore dystopias that may offer lessons for the present. As the recent success of Margaret Atwood's novel-turned-television hit Handmaid's Tale shows us, dystopia is more than minatory fantasy; it offers a critical lens upon the present. “It is not only a...

Investigation of power and dominion, through the lens of genre fiction, interviews, and essays. “All history,” writes Maximillian Alvarez, “is the history of empire—a bid for control of that greatest expanse of territory, the past.” Evil Empire confronts these histories head-on, exploring...

Martin Luther King's legacy for today's activists, fifty years after his death. Since his death on April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King's legacy has influenced generations of activism. Edited and with a lead essay by Brandon Terry, this volumeexplores what this legacy can and cannot do for activism...

An examination of the emerging rural left, from environmentalists blocking pipeline construction to teachers on strike. In Left Elsewhere, volume editor and lead essayist Elizabeth Catte turns a skeptical eye toward “purple” politicians, such as West Virginia Democrat Richard Ojeda, who...

Feminist writers and scholars consider whether technology has made good on its promise to liberate women—sexually, biologically, economically, and politically. In Once and Future Feminist, editor and lead essayist Merve Emre turns a critical eye on the role of technology in feminism both...

Race Capitalism Justice urges us to embrace a vision of justice attentive to the history of slavery not through the lens of human rights, but instead through an honest accounting of how slavery was the foundation of capitalism, a legacy that continues to afflict people of color and the poor. Inspired...

Poetry that grapples with the intersection of natural and cultural crises. In an age of record-breaking superstorms and environmental degradation, What Nature seeks—through poetry—to make sense of how we interact with and are influenced by nature. Shifting its focus from what has...