Articles by Emre Peker
September 12, 2007
How I learned to Love the Bomb: A Review of William Langewiesche’s The Atomic Bazaar 0
Gone are the days of mutually assured destruction, when – at the push of a red button – one of the nuclear giants could initiate a worldwide fallout, inevitably bringing about the widely feared doomsday. It is different now: the rogues are in the game. The bomb scare is not what it used to be. [...]
July 16, 2007
Potter, not so good for industry after all 2
In an article on Washington Post’s Outlook Sunday, book critic Ron Charles explores the Harry Potter phenomenon, dissects – rather unfavorably – J.K. Rowling’s writing and discusses issues that are larger than the teenage wizard. Yes, larger than Potter – if you can believe it. With the seventh installment hitting the shelves July 21, Potter-mania [...]
July 11, 2007
The Devil Inside: A Review of Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita 4
About a year ago, The Millions readers recommended that I read Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita after I wrote about Crime and Punishment – which was not so much a commentary on Dostoevsky’s fantastic writing, but a plea for more excellent Russian literature. As happens with a lot of books I end up reading, [...]
July 9, 2007
Living in the Shadows: A Review of Jose Saramago’s Blindness 4
Seeing is believing. And if you don’t see the shit you wallow in, maybe you won’t mind it as much. Or at least that is one of the tangential points in Jose Saramago’s Blindness, a powerful journey into darkness that sheds a light on humankind in a moment of weakness. With a simple narrative and [...]
June 25, 2007
Everybody Needs Moore Health Care 1
Overboard, sensational, witty, funny and not-so-objective Sicko is a Michael Moore classic. It is also a lesson in how to take a not-so-controversial issue (providing health care to all) and turn it into a provocative subject (by suggesting that Cuba, France and Canada’s universal coverage works wonders). But there is something inherently good about Sicko’s [...]
February 3, 2007
The Ghosts in Chicago’s Political Machine 0
“Why is it that members of the same family get appointments in several sections of government and only large firms seem to get representation on boards dealing with zoning and construction?” Sound familiar? This question was posed in 1971 by the newly elected alderman of the 44th Ward, Dick Simpson, to the “‘Boss’ of all [...]
