Peter C. Baker

A richly reported new book offers powerful insights into the cooking habits—and daily struggles—of working-class Americans.

In Saving Talk Therapy, Enrico Gnaulati argues that in-depth, long-term, interpersonal psychotherapy remains one of the best tools for alleviating emotional suffering.

In Duped, Abby Ellin explores what people need from each other, and the lies and suspensions of disbelief that sometimes help them get it.

Ieva Jusionyte explores the spirit of first response in an area where dangers don't care about boundaries.

Since ancient times, border walls have simultaneously assuaged and stoked our fears of outsiders. But a history of walls can't tell the full story of civilization.

Katya Cengel tracks the lives of four families following the fall of the genocidal Khmer Rouge.

A nervous storm cloud of historical might-have-beens—a fitting companion to our age of diffuse paranoia.

Sociologist Eve Ewing analyzes the closings from multiple angles.

RJ Young's memoir recounts how he tried to endear himself to his white in-laws by learning how to shoot. Both love affairs eventually fell apart.

A portrait of the stressed and shrinking American middle class.

Ken Auletta's latest book explores the chaotic world of contemporary advertising.

A new book argues that we can't overcome racism unless white people are willing to be a little uncomfortable.

A new book with an imperfect narrator demonstrates the benefits—and limits—of taking right-wing extremists at their word.

Behind the nationwide program that empowered health authorities to surveil women, quarantine them in miserable conditions, and force them to undergo painful and ineffective treatments.

With help from readers who wrote to him about their workplace experiences, anthropologist David Graeber develops a taxonomy of bullshit jobs.

Historian Annelise Orleck traveled to Mexico, Cambodia, and Bangladesh, plus all across America, to interview low-wage workers fighting for better conditions and pay.

Sociologist Cynthia Miller-Idriss argues how brands sneak past German laws against Nazi symbols while building a community among customers.

A new book argues that America uses digital tools to sequester and punish its poorest citizens. But can we really blame technology?

Are aging Americans hyper-anxious about dementia?

Political writer Liza Featherstone uses focus groups as a lens on the past, present, and future of the American project.

Professor John Hoberman turns his attention to cops.

Journalist Noam Cohen's new book argues that Silicon Valley is a social wrecking ball, but is that perspective enough to create change?

In her new book, journalist Jessica Bruder argues that, in post-2008 America, the nostalgic vision of RVs and other "wheel estate" is incomplete.

In her new book, lawyer Tanya Osensky argues that constantly monitoring height is a symptom and driver of a pervasive "heightism" that unjustly frames tallness as powerful and shortness as weak.

Journalist Lauren Markham's new book tells the story of twin teenage brothers who migrate from gang-ridden El Salvador to Oakland, California.

In her new book, martial artist Wendy Rouse digs into the history of women fighting back.

In her new book, Vanessa Panfil offers a detailed and nuanced portrayal of homosexual life among gangs in Ohio.

A new book by a German historian looks at the conflicting history of segregation in commercial air travel.

According to a recent research, law enforcement often leverages a powerful psychological susceptibility—the "emotional seesaw effect"—that potentially has widespread application.

Erik Love's new book is invaluable for its detailed chronicle of Muslim-American activism.

Jennifer Latson's debut illustrates a boy's coming-of-age, complicated by a genetic disorder that strips peoples' social inhibitions.

Richard Rothstein's magisterial new book tracks how the government segregated America—and how new policy, and new education, could save us.

Exploring the rising tensions between Chicago police and citizens.

Stuck inside our heads, we all know how much we're watching others, but fail to grasp just how much everyone else is watching us.

Most of the time, we end up with opinions we parrot from political figures we support.

In his latest book, Chris Hayes urges white Americans to take black suffering seriously.

Jonathan W. White argues that the Civil War might have been the most sleepless period in American history.

A portrait of George Washington as slave master.

The 19th-century British economist Stanley Jevons predicted—correctly—that the invention of more-efficient steam engines would lead to more coal getting burned.

A new book traces the legal history of self-defense in America—and shows how laws for self-protection have been generally reserved for whites.

What, exactly, does teen suicide tell us about America today?

When Cody Wilson pioneered 3-D printing for guns, he claimed the technology represented a victory for liberty. In Wilson's new book, it seems "liberty" can also mean "racial purity."

Not the slavery you learned about in high school.

Living among renters in a hotbed of evictions to try to understand this complex—and mostly unknown—driver of poverty.

A look at the powerful forces dividing America's third-largest city into different worlds.

Our focus on C-suite executives and venture capital-funded unicorns distracts from the underclass that keeps the San Francisco Bay Area running.

And they're called Veblen goods.

Can genetic tests restore lost legacies?

The history of hooding has two intertwined strands: forced and voluntary.