Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

New on nybooks.com: Anne Applebaum on how the KGB returned to power in Russia, Jed Perl on how Picasso trumped modernism, and Helen Epstein on how distrust of the government propelled the Ebola epidemic in Liberia. A new poem by Edwin Frank, the real story of Chuck Hagel’s resignation by Elizabeth Drew, and what we need to know about ISIS byAhmed Rashid.

How Putin and His Cronies Stole Russia Anne Applebaum Since 2000, Russia has been ruled by a revanchist, revisionist elite with origins in the old KGB. This elite had been working its way back to power since the late 1980s.   ADVERTISEMENT   You Can’t Catch Picasso Jed Perl No artist has ever embraced the freedom of the imagination with more fierce, hell-bent intensity than Picasso.   Liberia: An Epidemic of Rumors Helen Epstein Eventually Ebola will be contained in Liberia, and next time people should be ready for it so fewer will die. But the virus has shed light on a far tougher problem. Many Liberians don’t trust their president or her government.   In the current issue: James Gleick on Anonymous, Michael Tomasky on the twilight of the Obama era, Hilton Als on Diane Keaton, Richard Holmes on Coleridge, Anka Muhlsteinon Patrick Modiano, Michael Dirda on Richard Ford, Charles Baxter on H.P. Lovecraft, Patricia Storace on Sandra Gilbert, Rachel Donadio on Elena Ferrante, and more   ADVERTISEMENT   In the Dark Edwin Frank Further information is sure to be forthcoming, but for now our one recourse is to wait, and we,   we have been, we have been waiting now for a very long time…   The Firing of Chuck Hagel Elizabeth Drew Though Hagel and Obama thought quite alike and respected each other, Hagel was probably not cut out for the Obama administration, or for what it’s evolved into.   ISIS: What the United States Doesn’t Understand Ahmed Rashid The first thing we need to recognize is that ISIS is not waging a war against the West.   Mark Strand, a longtime contributor to the Review, died on Saturday. Here is “2002,” one of his poems from our archives: I am not thinking of Death, but Death is thinking of me. He leans back in his chair, rubs his hands, strokes His beard and says, “I’m thinking of Strand, I’m thinking That one of these days I’ll be out back, swinging my scythe Or holding my hourglass up to the moon, and Strand will appear In a jacket and tie, and together under the boulevards’ Leafless trees we’ll stroll into the city of souls. And when We get to the Great Piazza with its marble mansions, the crowd That had been waiting there will welcome us with delirious cries, And their tears, turned hard and cold as glass from having been Held back so long, will fall, and clatter on the stones below.                               O let it be soon. Let it be soon.”