“Ur-Fascism can come back under the most innocent of disguises. Our duty is to uncover it and to point our finger at any of its new instances—every day, in every part of the world.” Umberto Eco, 1995. Read more.
Mr. President, Pardon the Truth Seeker
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) filed a petition calling on Pres. Joe Biden to posthumously pardon D.M. Bennett, one of the Comstock Act’s most prominent victims. Hopefully, he will do this before leaving office. Read more.
Death by Incarceration
In the early ’70s, the number of individuals in prison in the U.S. was less than 200,000; as of December 31, 2022, there were 1,230,100 in prison. The “modern” era of prison executions dates from the execution of Gary Gilmore by firing squad in January 1977; as of November 30, 2023, 1,582 people have been executed. Read more.
Sex, Sin & Subversion
Sin, Sex & Subversion: How What Was Taboo in 1950s New York Became America’s New Normal was published by Skyhorse/Carrel in 2016 and is nominated for the 2017 Bonnie and Vern Bullough Book Award by the Foundation for the Scientific Study of Sexuality (FSSS).
“New York is not a state capital or a national capital,” E. B. White famously wrote in 1949, “but it is by way of becoming the capital of the world.” In the ‘50s, as London, Paris, Berlin, Moscow and Tokyo recovered from a devastating war, the Big Apple became the capital of the 20th century.
During the tumultuous 1950s, sex was as threatening to the nation’s moral order as communism and New York was the epicenter of two “wars“ — a “cold war” waged against subversion and a “hot war” against sin. Today, the once forbidden has become the new normal.
Book Reviews
- What is a Man?, a review of Thomas Page McBee’s Man Alive, FourTwoNine, October 14, 2014.
- Double Identity, a review of Beau Riffenburgh’s Pinkerton’s Great Detective: Â The Amazing Life and Times of James McParland. Â Brooklyn Rail, December 2013,
- Throwaway Lives, a review of Robert Kolker’s Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery, The Brooklyn Rail, September 2013.
- Eyes Everywhere, a review of Heidi Boghosian’s
 Spying on Democracy: Government Surveillance, 
Corporate Power, and Public Resistance, The Brooklyn Rail, September 2013.
- Village People, a review of John Strausbaugh’s
 The Village: 400 Years of Beats and Bohemians, Radicals and Rogues, a History of Greenwich Village, The Brooklyn Rail, April 2013.
- What Academic Freedom? — a review of Marjorie Heins’ Priests of Our Democracy:  The Supreme Court, Academic Freedom and the Anti-Communist Purge, The Brooklyn Rail, April 2013.
- The Body Politics —Â a review of Nancy Cohen’s Delirium: The Politics of Sex in America. Â The Brooklyn Rail, February 21013.
- City at War — a review of Steven Jaffe’s New York at War: Â Four Centuries of Combat, Fear, and Intrigue in Gotham. Â Brooklyn Rail, September 2012.
- Deviant Reflections: A Voice of Sexual Freedom –– a review of Deviations, a Gayle Rubin Reader; Brooklyn Rail, June  2012.
- Urban Combustion:  When Morality & Politics Mix –– a review of Richard Zacks’ Island of Vice: Theodore Roosevelt’s Doomed Quest to Clean Up Sin-Loving New York ; Brooklyn Rail, May  2012.
- Another Prohibition: Uncovering the Real 1920s –– a review of Emily Bernard’s Carl Van Vechten & the Harlem Renaissance and Marni Davis’ Jews and Booze; Brooklyn Rail, April  2012.
- Perversion is No Longer Perverse –– a review of Margo Weiss’ Techniques of Pleasure: Â BDSM and the Circuits of Sexuality;Â Brooklyn Rail, February 2012.
- WR: The Wanders of a Lost Soul –– a review Christopher Turner’s Adventures in the Orgasmatron: Â How the Sexual Revolution Came to America;Â Brooklyn Rail, February 2012.
- Are You What You Wear?: The Politics of Fashion –– a review of Zoot Suit: The Enigmatic Center of an Extreme Style, by Kathy Peiss;Â Brooklyn Rail, October 2011.
- The 1920s: Â The Good Times? –– a review of Capital of the World: Â A Portrait of New York City in the Roaring Twenties, by David Wallace;Â Brooklyn Rail, May 2011.
- Points of Moral Friction:  When Classes Confront Each Other –– a review of The Moral Underground: How Ordinary Americans Subvert an Unfair Economy, by Lisa Dodson; Brooklyn Rail, May 2011.
- Cyber Wars 2.0 –– a review of The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom by Evgeny Morozov; Brooklyn Rail, April 2011.
- The Party’s Over: Welcome to the “New Normal†— a review of Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer — and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class by Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson; Brooklyn Rail, March 2011.
- Bottoms-Up American History — a review of A Renegade History of the United States by Thaddeus Russell; Brooklyn Rail, February 2011.
- Steward’s Notes from the Underground — book review of Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samuel Steward, Professor, Tattoo Artist, and Sexual Renegade Justin Spring; Brooklyn Rail, November 2010.
- The Not-So Roaring Twenties — a review of Anything Goes: A Biography of the Twenties by Lucy Moore and Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition by Daniel Okrent; Brooklyn Rail, July 2010.
- Sex & the City of Orgies — a review of Sex in the City: An Illustrated History by Alison Maddex and NYCSEX: How New York City Transformed Sex in America (New York Museum of Sex); Sexuality and Culture, Winter, 2004.