Innholdsfortegnelse for 06/01/2018 i Newsweek International

IN THE LATE 1940S AND EARLY 19›0S, PARIS beckoned African-American intellectuals hoping to escape the racism and conformity of American life. Chief among them: Richard Wright, the acclaimed author of Native Son and Black Boy, who arrived in 1947. He was soon joined by Chester Himes, an ex-convict who mastered hardboiled detective fiction; James Baldwin, the precocious essayist; and Richard Gibson, an editor at the Agence France-Presse. These men became friends, colleagues and, soon, bitter rivals. Their relationship appeared to unravel over France’s war to keep its colony in Algeria. Gibson pressured Wright to publicly criticize the French government, angering the acclaimed author. Wright dramatized their falling-out in a roman à clef he called Island of Hallucination, which was never published, even after his death in 1960. In 2005, Gibson…

At the upcoming 18th Meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Council of Heads of State, the first summit since the expansion of its membership, leaders of the eight member states will map the future of a larger organization. The meeting, to be held in Qingdao, east China’s Shandong Province, in June, will also see the release of milestone documents that codify their consensus. All this will further en- hance the solidarity and influence of the SCO. Evolution The SCO came into being against a distinct international backdrop in the aftermath of the Cold War. It was created as a new regional mechanism to meet the needs of countries in the region to maintain stability and promote shared development. Under the Shanghai Five grouping, predecessor to the SCO, China, Russia…

An enormous cave in Kenya is not just adding to the story of how humans evolved, it’s rewriting it. IN THE STORY OF HUMAN EVOLUTION, EAST AFRICA has received short shrift. Archaeologists have long thought men and women marched toward technological progress in the continent’s northern and southern regions before migrating across the globe. But an enormous cave in Kenya is not just adding to the story; it’s rewriting it. Ten years ago, Nicole Boivin, director of Germany’s Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, traveled to Panga ya Saidi, a network of caves in the Rift Valley, less than 10 miles from the shores of the Indian Ocean. Boivin was hoping to better understand the trade routes established by East Africans 2,000 years ago. “As soon as…

IT’S JUNE, ALMOST HALFWAY THROUGH the year, and what have you read—other than several thousand tweets? If you’re like most people, not much, what with work, child care, mindless TV bingeing, plunging down Instagram rabbit holes, stressing about current events and stressing about stressing. But that’s what summer’s for, right? Catching up? We’ve organized this year’s notable releases (with some 2017 spillover) according to genre. Note: Given our times, we’ve provided a bigger-than-usual collection of thrillers and crime novels, because nothing distracts from an annus horribilis like bloodbaths and skulduggery.…

Black No More By George S. Schuyler PENGUIN CLASSICS Reissued in 2018, this 1931 novel is a scathing satire of the hypocrisy of freedom. Its plot: A doctor invents a procedure that permanently transforms black people into whites—denying the South lynching opportunities, among other things. The combative Schuyler was a black conservative contrarian—he disliked Martin Luther King Jr.—but this is as brilliant a takedown of racism as exists in fiction. Dinner at the Center of the Earth By Nathan Englander ALFRED A. KNOPF The second novel from the Pulitzer Prizewinning author turns the unending Israel and Palestinian conflict into a tragicomic fable, full of wisdom and humanity. The House of Broken Angels By Luis Alberto Urrea LITTLE, BROWN AND CO. The Mexican-American de la Cruz clan is messy, in the…

Online critics “have the freedom to write what they want. We also have the freedom to not care.” THE FIRST EPISODE OF THE fourth season of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt finds our Kimmy—a wide-eyed, confoundingly optimistic former kidnap victim played by Ellie Kemper—at her new job, as HR director at the startup company Giztoob. Per usual, she’s determined to make every part of it fun, even when firing an employee named Kabir. After calling him into her office, Kimmy inappropriately hugs, compliments, and massages him. Sensing he might be feeling ashamed, she assures him that embarrassing stuff can happen to anyone. To prove it, Kimmy drops her pants: “Uh-oh!” she exclaims. Then, reaching for the smoothie she had bought him as a gift, she adds, “This thing’s not going to suck…

AN OVERLY TANNED RIGHT-wing populist with a fervent base seemingly dodges scandal after scandal, until several women he’s abused, insulted or exploited finally lead to his downfall. That scenario may sound like Donald Trump’s presidency, albeit with a liberal fantasy ending. But I’m actually talking about Silvio Berlusconi, the flamboyant former Italian prime minister. The two leaders have a lot in common. Both are wealthy demagogues with long records of bankruptcy and shady business dealings. Both are celebrities—Berlusconi once ran a TV empire, Trump had a hit reality-TV franchise. Both entered politics, claiming that only they could fix a broken political system—one from which they handsomely benefited. Both are savvy salesmen who appealed to disgruntled voters by projecting themselves—paradoxically—as cartoonish authoritarians and victimized everymen. Both became embroiled in sex scandals.…

“PLEASE DO NOT THIN THESE ARE SOMEHOW radical, or unpopular, or extreme or fringe ideas,” Bernie Sanders tells me. It’s early May, and the once-and-perhaps-future presidential contender is ticking off progressive policy proposals—his policy proposals—that, in the two years since his loss to Hillary Clinton in the 2016 primary, have rapidly remade the Democratic Party: universal health care, tuition-free public college, a $15-an-hour minimum wage. When he’s told that some believe his ideas may be better suited to Finland than Nebraska, Sanders bristles. “Look at the polling,” he snaps in his thick Brooklyn accent, which decades in Vermont have not diminished. “You don’t have to believe what I tell you.” By many measures, he’s right. In the two years since his insurgent campaign for the White House succumbed to the…

The Beekeeper: Rescuing the Stolen Women of Iraq By Dunya Mikhail NEW DIRECTIONS PUBLISHING In 2014, the Islamic State group (ISIS) invaded northern Iraq, killing men and enslaving women. A local beekeeper smuggled some of the women back to their homes. Mikhail, a journalist and poet, spoke to survivors, bearing witness to their wrenching stories of horrific abuse. City of Devils By Paul French PICADOR Historical true crime that transports you back to the decadence and deranged beauty of 1930s Shanghai—a place that rivaled Prohibition Chicago for colorful miscreants and bruisers, including an ex-Navy boxer who became the Slot King of Shanghai. (Out in July.) Educated: A Memoir By Tara Westover RANDOM HOUSE If you’ve ever questioned why people stay in cults or abusive families, this coming-of-age memoir by the…

My Name Is Nathan Lucius By Mark Winkler SOHO PRESS Lucius works as an ad salesman for a South African newspaper—he’s an odd guy but harmless. Or maybe seriously damaged. Or perhaps a serial killer? Noir at its darkest, cunningly executed. High White Sun By J. Todd Scott G.P. PUTNAM’S SONS Small-town cops, the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration battle white supremacists on the Texas borderland’s. Scott’s grim, violent sort-of sequel to his 2016 debut, The Far Empty, is as addictive as the best crime show. Grist Mill Road By Christopher J. Yates, PICADOR Adolescent boy secretly watches as his friend tortures a girl, shooting out her eye. Twenty-six years later, secret, guilt-ridden boy marries girl, who survived. And the assailant? He’s back. Unexpected twists and shifting sympathies keep…

“Look at the Dalai Lama—talk about a rhythm master! I would hope our president would learn a bit from him.” “I HAVE A RHYTHM-CENTRIC VIEW OF EVERYTHING,” SAYS MIC EY HART, THE Grateful Dead’s former drummer. For years, the percussionist and musicologist has been promoting the healing powers of music. In 1991, the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging invited Hart and the late neurologist Oliver Sacks to testify about the positive impact rhythm can have on Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia. And this spring, at the American Museum of Natural History’s Hayden Planetarium in New York, Hart performed “Musica Universalis: The Greatest Story Ever Told,” a sonic and visual voyage spanning 13.8 billion years in 30 minutes, from the Big Bang onward. As he played an electric,…

$14.5 MILLION Amount the U.S. Office of Naval Research has spent so far to investigate how our gut microbiome influences our brain, including our response to stress. 1 out of 16 Number of probiotic products analyzed in a 2016 University of California, Davis, study that included the exact bacterial species listed on the label. The finding highlights the lax regulation. 100 TRILLION Number of bacteria—a mix of good and bad—in the human gastrointestinal system. 3.1 MILLION Number of Americans diagnosed with IBD, according to 2016 estimates by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s over twice the cases estimated in 2007. 4 MILLION Number of Americans who took probiotics or prebiotics (nondigestible, fibrous portion of foods such as bananas, onions and apples, usually taken in pill or powder form) in 2012—four times more…

A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership By James Comey FLATIRON BOOKS Attend cocktail parties without reading this book at your peril. The controversial former director of the FBI, fired a year ago by President Donald Trump, has written summer’s political must-read. How Democracies Die By Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt CROWN PUBLISHING GROUP The two Harvard political scientists—as disgusted by Donald Trump as anyone—believe the current erosion of norms actually began during the last year of the Obama presidency, when Republicans refused to confirm Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court. But while they see nothing good in the spread of authoritarianism, they also offer historical examples of people who have fought against it and won. Journey Into Europe: Islam, Immigration, and Identity By Akbar Ahmed BROOKINGS INSTITUTION PRESS Ahmed’s…

Chasing New Horizons: Inside the Epic First Mission to Pluto By Alan Stern and David Grinspoon PICADOR Popular science at its very best, from Stern, the leader of the NASA mission to send the first probe to Pluto (which succeeded in 2015), and astrobiologist Grinspoon. As riveting as a thriller, and not just for space buffs. Darwin Comes to Town By Menno Schilthuizen PICADOR The Dutch urban biologist makes an entertaining case for the highly unique and accelerated evolutionary environment of cities. Yes, those rats and cockroaches are adapting before your eyes. Natural Causes By Barbara Ehrenreich, TWELVE Don’t read this if you plan to live forever: Our most engaging myth-buster has no time for you. The 76-year-old Ehrenreich’s scathing takedown of the wellness industry, New Age banalities and the…