In 1914, Teddy Roosevelt assembled a team of editors to found a new magazine that would provide a voice for the growing movement for progressive political reform. In the century since, The New Republic has published many of the twentieth century's most important voices as it has charted -- and influenced -- the rise and fall of American liberalism. Organized chronologically and grouped by decade, the 70 essays in Insurrections of the Mind together comprise an intellectual biography of one of the great currents in American politics. The book features a stunning collection of authors and thinkers: William Faulkner, Virginia Woolf, Vladimir Nabokov, Ralph Ellison, Graham Greene, Michael Lewis, James Wolcott, and many others. These writers weigh in on the crucial and polarizing debates of the twentieth and early-twenty-first centuries: the women's movement, the New Deal, America's role in war, the rise and fall of communism, religion, race and civil rights, the economy, terrorism, technology, and the push for gay rights. The book's range of pieces -- from a Langston Hughes poem to a John Updike review of a Warhol retrospective to a Margaret Talbot essay on Martha Stewart -- speaks to the sustained ambition and reach of the magazine. Each article is accompanied by a short introduction by The New Republic 's current editor, Franklin Foer; these annotations provide colorful biographical sketches of contributors and amusing anecdotes from the history of the magazine. The beautifully-packaged book also features photographs and illustrations from the magazine's deep archives.

Bold, brilliant, and rich in sweep and scope, Insurrections of the Mind is a celebration of a cultural and intellectual force that broke new ground and has stood the test of time.