Gleanings

Utopians yearn for a Newtonian creator, but our world is dappled, full of surprise, failure, and freedom.

Why should an infinite, all-powerful being choose to rest? Tolstoy had an answer.

The great Jewish writer evoked a city—now under threat from Russia's armies—with a character of its own that has entered into folklore, literature, and the popular imagination.

Even though the author tries to downplay it, a new book shows how deeply rooted anti-Semitism was in Soviet ideology.