The New York Review of Books

A new history of Christianity traces its transformation over a thousand years from an enormous diversity of beliefs and practices to Catholic uniformity.

James Marsh’s biopic Dance First runs into some predictable problems in adapting the life of a writer, especially one as recognizable as Samuel Beckett.

Crooked Plow by Itamar Vieira Junior, translated from the Portuguese by Johnny Lorenz Verso, 276 pp., $19.95 (paper)

On the eve of Mexico’s presidential elections, Andrés Manuel López Obrador maintains a high approval rating. But his constitutional chicanery and disregard for the law have undermined democracy, and his divisive rhetoric has polarized the country.

For months now an enormous excavating machine has been drilling deep into central Rome beneath Piazza Venezia, at the foot of the looming Victor Emmanuel II National Monument—a white marble pile of steps and columns that is probably the closest we will ever get to experiencing the grandeur of ancient Rome. Also known as the Altar of the Fatherland, and with an eternal flame for the unknown soldier flanked by a solemn honor guard, the monument is nicknamed “The Typewriter.” Romans have been deflating pomposity for millennia. On another side of the piazza is Palazzo Venezia, where Mussolini had his headquarters and from whose balcony he delivered speeches to adoring throngs.

While our brains do not simply mirror our surroundings, animals—nonhuman and human—are exquisitely embedded, suspended, in nature’s energies.

The new installation of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s refurbished European Paintings galleries brings masterpieces of the collection into exhilarating juxtaposition with one another.

Adam Shatz argues in his new biography of Frantz Fanon that the supposed patron saint of political violence was instead a visionary of a radical universalism that rejected racial essentialism and colonialism.

Vinson Cunningham’s novel Great Expectations is nominally about the experiences of an Obama campaign staffer but is really a glimpse into the formation of a critical mind.

In David Adjmi’s new play, a fictional Seventies rock band struggles with life and art.