David Rosen Writes

on sex, politics & American life

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Reviews`

2023

  • Preparing for War: The Extremist History of White Christian Nationalism – and What Comes Next, by Bradley Onishi, New York Journal of Books, February 16, 2023.

2022

  • Gangsters of Capitalism: Smedley Butler, the Marines, and the Making and Breaking of America’s Empire by Jonathan M. Katz, New York Journal of Books, February 14, 2022.
  • The Next Civil War:  Dispatches from the American Future by Stephen Marche, New York Journal of Books, February 4, 2022.

2021

  • Julian Assange in His Own Words, compiled and edited by Karen Sharp, New York Journal of Books, December 14, 2021.
  • Madam: The Biography of Polly Adler, Icon of the Jazz Age by Debbie Applegate, New York Journal of Books, November 29, 2021.
  • America on Fire: The Untold History of Police Violence and Black Rebellion Since the 1960s by Elizabeth Hinton, New York Journal of Books, May 24, 2021.
  • The Invention of Miracles: Language, Power, and Alexander Graham Bell’s Quest to End Deafness by Katie Booth, New York Journal of Books, April 5, 2021.

2020

  • White Fright: The Sexual Panic at the Heart of America’s Racist History by Jane Dailey, New York Journal of Books, November 24, 2020.
  • The Riches of This Land: The Untold, True Story of America’s Middle Class by Jim Tankersley, New York Journal of Books, September 11, 2020.
  • In Defense of Looting: A Riotous History of Uncivil Actions by Vicky Osterwell, New York Journal of Books, September 2, 2020.
  • What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About #MeToo: Essays on Sex, Authority and the Mess of Life by JoAnn Wypijewski, New York Journal of Books, July 9, 2020.
  • The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism by Katherine Stewart, New York Journal of Books, March 19, 2020.

2019

  • A Warning by Annoymous, New York Journal of Books, December 23, 2019.
  • American Radicals: How 19th Century Protest Shaped the Nation by Holly Jackson, New York Journal of Books, October 7, 2019.
  • The End of Roe v. Wade: Inside the Right’s Plan to Destroy Legal Abortion by Robin Marty and Jessica Mason Pieklo, New York Journal of Books, August 31, 2019.
  • We’re Still Here: Pain and Politics in the Heart of America by Jennifer M. Silva, New York Journal of Books, August 15, 2019, 2019.
  • Kochland: The Secret History of Koch Industries and Corporate Power in America by Christopher Leonard, New York Journal of Books, August 12, 2019, 2019.
  • After the Rise and Stall of American Feminism: Taking Back a Revolution by Lynn Chancer; New York Journal of Books, February 5, 2019.
  • Handbook for a Post-Roe America by Robin Marty; New York Journal of Books, January 21, 2019.

2018

  • Everything for Everyone: The Radical Tradition That is Shaping the Next Economy by Nathan Schneider; New York Journal of Books, October 17, 2018.
  • Giants: The Global Power Elite by Peter Phillips; New York Journal of Books, October 3, 2018.
  • The Value of Everything: Making and Taking in the Global Economy by Mariana Mazzucato; New York Journal of Books, September 25, 2018.
  • The Trials of Nina McCall: Sex, Surveillance, and the Decades-Long Government Plan to Imprison “Promiscuous” Women by Scott W. Stern; New York Journal of Books, June 26, 2018.
  • The Most Dangerous Man in America: Timothy Leary, Richard Nixon and the Hunt for the Fugitive King of LSD by Bill Minutaglio and Steven L. Davis; New York Journal of Books, March 13, 20018.

2017

  • The Second Coming of the KKK: The Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s and the American Political Tradition by Linda Gordon; New York Journal of Books, December 17, 2017.
  • The Naughty Nineties: The Triumph of the American Libido by David Friend; New York Journal of Book, November 3, 2017.
  • True Sex: The Lives of Trans Men at the Turn of the Twentieth Century by Emily Skidmore; New York Journal of Books, October 2, 2017.
  • Sex in the Digital Age, Paul Nixon and Isabel K. Düsterhöft, eds., (Routledge, 2017); New York Journal of Books, September 25, 2018
  • The War on Sex, David M. Halperin and Trevor Hoppe, eds; New York Journal of Book, June 5, 2017.
  • Fear City: New York’s Fiscal Crisis and the Rise of Austerity Politics by Kim Phillips-Fein; New York Journal of Book, May 26, 2017.
  • Sex and the Constitution: Sex, Religion, and Law from America’s Origins to the Twenty-First Century, by Geoffrey R. Stone; New York Journal of Books, April 11, 2017.
  • Respectability on Trial: Sex Crimes in New York City, 1900–1918 by Brian Donovan; New York Journal of Books, March 20, 2017.  
  • Suspect Freedoms: The Racial and Sexual Politics of Cubanidad in New York, 1823-1957 by Nancy Raquel Mirabel; New York Review of Books, February 13, 2017.

2016

  • Paradise Now: The Story of American Utopianism, by Chris Jennings (review), Sexuality & Culture, 20, no 2 (June 2016).
  • The Brooklyn Thrill-Kill Gang and the Great Comic Book Scare of the 1950s, Mariah Adlin (review), Sexuality and Culture, #20, v. 1, pp. 192-94 (January 2016).

2013

  • Pinkerton’s Great Detective: The Amazing Life and Times of James McParland by Beau Riffenburgh; The Brooklyn Rail, December 2013.
  • Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery by Robert Kolker; The Brooklyn Rail, September 2013.
  • Spying on Democracy: Government Surveillance, 
Corporate Power, and Public Resistance by Heidi Boghosian; The Brooklyn Rail, September 2013.
  • The Village: 400 Years of Beats and Bohemians, Radicals and Rogues, a History of Greenwich Village by John Strausbaug; The Brooklyn Rail, June 2013.
  • Priests of Our Democracy: The Supreme Court, Academic Freedom and the Anti-Communist Purge by Marjorie Heins; The Brooklyn Rail, April 2013.
  • Delirium: The Politics of Sex in America by Nancy Cohen; The Brooklyn Rail, February 2013.

2012

  • New York at War: Four Centuries of Combat, Fear, and Intrigue in Gotham by Steven Jaffe; The Brooklyn Rail, September 2012.
  • Island of Vice: Theodore Roosevelt’s Doomed Quest to Clean Up Sin-Loving New York by Richard Zacks; The Brooklyn Rail, May 2012.
  • Carl Van Vechten & the Harlem Renaissance by Emily Bernard and Jews and Booze by Marni Davis; The Brooklyn Rail, April 2012.
  • Techniques of Pleasure: BDSM and the Circuits of Sexuality by Margot Weiss; The Brooklyn Rail, March 2012.
  • Adventures in the Orgasmatron:
 How the Sexual Revolution Came to America by Christopher Turner; The Brooklyn Rail, February 2012.

2011

  • Capital of the World:
 A Portrait of New York City in the Roaring Twenties by David Wallace; Brooklyn Rail,October 2011.
  • Stayin’ Alive: the 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class by Jefferson Cowie;
 Rebel Rank and File: Labor Militancy and Revolt from Below During the Long 1970s by Aaron Brenner, Robert Brenner and Cal Winslow; and The Hidden 1970s: Histories of Radicalism, Dan Berger, ed.; The Brooklyn Rail, July-August, 2011
  • The Moral Underground: How Ordinary Americans Subvert an Unfair Economy by Lisa Dodson; Brooklyn Rail, May 2011
  • The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom by Evgeny Morozov; The Brooklyn Rail, April 2011.
  • Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer — and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class by Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson; The Brooklyn Rail, March 2011.
  • A Renegade History of the United States by Thaddeus Russell; The Brooklyn Rail, February 2011.

Recent Articles

The New “Last Ditchers”

“Last Ditcher” is a 19th century concept that needs to be recalled these days.  Its ethos is embodied in political/culture campaigns being waged by today’s radical right.  Read more. … [Read More...]

Lessons from Majid Khan’s Release from Guantánamo

On February 2, U.S. prisoner and former al Qaeda courier Majid Khan was released from the Guantánamo Bay Detention Camp in Cuba after more than sixteen years of imprisonment.  Read more. … [Read More...]

Biden’s Missing Word: Inequality

On February 2nd, Pres. Joe Biden delivered his annual State of the Union address and the missing word was "inequality." Read more. … [Read More...]


DAVID ROSEN is a widely published author whose books include
Sex, Sin & Subversion: The Transformation of 1950s New York’s Forbidden into America’s New Normal (2016); Sex Scandal America: Politics & the Ritual of Public Shaming (2009); Off-Hollywood: The Making & Marketing of Independent Films (1991), originally commissioned by the Sundance Institute and the Independent Feature Project. He is author of many scholarly articles, book reviews and popular pieces on media-tech, telecom, politics, sex and American life.

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