Description:
Liberties features the world's sharpest minds for readers who are determined to stay curious. The result is a collection of writing about today worth rereading tomorrow.
The Summer 2026 issue will be a special edition, with a nod to America's Semiquincentennial. Liberties writers will examine 250 years of culture and politics in the United States and the issue will feature a diverse selection of American poetry.
In this issue of Liberties, Sean Wilentz exposes the Trumpian distortions of the American past; Andrew Delbanco on the tribulations of the American university; Lewis Hyde explains what American history teaches about ICE; Armando Chaguaceda presents the creed of a Cuban dissident; Meg Vlaun on retreating to the mountains; Roxana Saberi interviews riot police on the streets of Iran; Ihab Hassan a Palestinian's indictment of Hamas; Carissa Véliz a non-Luddite tribute to an analog existence; Michael C. Kimmage Melville's oceanic parable of democratic citizenship; Arash Azizi the patriotism of a progressive; Mark Lilla on the unbeautiful nature of politics; Robert Alter on how the Bible does a lot with a little; Len Gutkin on the persistence of the political in the reading of literature; Kai Sina the strenuous liberalism and Zionism of Thomas Mann; Nadia Jamil Mahmoud Darwish's poetry of empathy; Tamar Glezerman on mourning far away from home; Ani Chkhikvadze discovers the occult in the nation's capital; Celeste Marcus on rape in polite society; and Leon Wieseltier the meanings of patriotism in our semiquincentennial.
The issue also include a selection of American poetry spanning Benjamin Franklin, Philip Freneau, Carrie Williams Clifford, Frances Harper, John Greenleaf Whittier, Herman Melville, Phoebe Cary, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ambrose Bierce, Emma Lazarus, Walt Whitman, and Stephen Crane.
Liberties is the premier journal of culture and politics that also publishes new works online weekly and hosts lively events dedicated to thinking carefully about art and ideas. United only by a commitment to advancing the humanities and the democratic process, Liberties provides serious ideas and beautiful writing for readers who demand both.
Brief description:
Armando Chaguaceda is a political scientist and historian. He is currently Karl Loewenstein Fellow and Visiting Professor of Political Science at Amherst College.
Review Quotes:
"Liberties is a murderers row of important, fortifying, and inspiring writers." --Aaron Sorkin
"If you wish to have your mind and spirit sharpened on the grinding stone of prescient, progressive and profound insights, Liberties is THE place to be. Change starts in the mind." --Wynton Marsalis
"A quarterly of urgency, of cultural exploration, of intellectual delight, of immaculate prose." --Cynthia Ozick
"It's like a meteor of intelligent substance that landed on my desk." --Thomas L. Friedman (New York Times)
"Liberties sure is needed in these times." --Bill Maher
"The appearance of Liberties in the middle of the pandemic was a rare source of light. Its intellectual independence is as admirable as its intellectual seriousness, and it also has style and wit. Something was missing in our culture, and here it is." --Tina Brown
"Invaluable." --David Brooks (New York Times)
"A triumph for freedom of thought." --Mario Vargas Llosa
"Liberty is under threat and Liberties girds us for the fight." --George Stephanopoulos
"Liberties: Some serious food for thought." --Christiane Amanpour
"Liberties is full of observation, insight, and something you don't find everywhere, something you don't see coming: a kind of optimism, which shows clearly in its independent and all-inclusive mien." --Isaac Mizrahi