In 1927, ELIAS CANETTI (1905-94) threw himself into a Viennese crowd protesting an acquittal in a murder trial. The crowd went on to burn...

The most dangerous game?

Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, the 18th lord of the Irish barony of Dunsany, hunted big game in Africa and played champion chess. As...

John Mortimer, the barrister who successfully defended Last Exit To Brooklyn, a novel by HUBERT SELBY JR. (1928-2004), against an obscenity charge in a...

1996: An in-depth interview with Robert Thurman.

JAMES WHALE (1889-1957) was born in England’s industrial Black Country. Here’s a typical gag from those parts: An old left-wing activist is on his...

ASIDE FROM BRANDY and cigars, no product on the market is packaged quite as traditionally as cigarette papers. Nearly every item on your grocer’s...

In his seminal works, The Mechanical Bride (1951) and Understanding Media (1964), the Canadian philosopher MARSHALL MCLUHAN (1911-80) offered astute, didactic examinations of how...