John Steinbeck based “The Grapes of Wrath” on Sanora Babb’s notes. But she was writing her own American epic.

A celebrated chronicler of human suffering, John Steinbeck could not abide other people.

The U.S. has historically chosen war to address all kinds of problems: terror, drugs, unfriendly countries. This time is different.

A new biopic reveals what the antihero of Prohibition can teach us today.

Climate change demands a much more ambitious plan than the Great Depression did. It even requires reversing some of FDR's successes.

Irish Americans used to be progressive champions for the oppressed and the downtrodden. Now many of them are Trump voters.

The Man of Steel is 75. His biography is our history.

Why do so many novelists write about visual art?