Excerpts

Works by Harvard-affiliated authors

All from this series

  • Only eat organic? You’re paying too much, and it’s not worth it, author says

    An excerpt from “Resetting the Table: Straight Talk about the Food We Grow and Eat” by Robert Paarlberg, associate in the Sustainability Science Program at the Harvard Kennedy School and at Weatherhead Center for International Affairs.

    Vegetables.
  • Toppling the myth of meritocracy

    The myth of meritocracy is not merely self-deluding, Michael Sandel argues in his new book, but it also fuels our divisiveness.

    Michael Sandel.
  • Nathan Pusey’s battle with Joseph McCarthy

    An excerpt from the new book “Demagogue: The Life and Long Shadow of Senator Joe McCarthy” by Larry Tye.

    Nathan Pusey leaving Massachusetts Hall.
  • A room of one’s own

    Excerpt from “The Equivalents: A Story of Art, Female Friendship, and Liberation in the 1960s” by Maggie Doherty.

    Bunting fellows.
  • Girl with the golden arm

    In this excerpt from Gish Jen’s satiric new novel, a star pitcher struggles against the police state in a riven, dystopian America.

    Surveillance illustration.
  • How America went astray

    Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn return to Kristof’s rural Oregon hometown to find the roots of white working-class anger

    Photo of street.
  • Flight from reason

    In his new book, “How America Lost Its Mind: The Assault on Reason That’s Crippling Our Democracy,” Thomas Patterson looks at the rejection of logic and reason in American political life and how it threatens Democracy.

    Thomas E. Patterson.
  • One L, only harder

    The following is excerpted from Haben Girma’s memoir “Haben: The Deafblind Woman Who Conquered Harvard Law.”

    Haben Girma kneels with her dog, who has placed one paw on her knee
  • Like a fish out of a war zone

    An excerpt from “The Education of an Idealist: A Memoir” by Samantha Power.

    Samantha Power interviewing Bosnian military