Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

New on nybooks.com: Judge Jed Rakoff speaks out against the evils of mass incarceration, Nicholas Lemann takes issue with Robert Putnam’s view of mobility in America,Zaid Al-Ali reports on Tikrit after ISIS, Tim Parks looks at what we see when we read, Martin Filler assesses the architecture of Pritzker Prize winner Frei Otto, and we celebrate Orson Welles’s 100th birthday with readings from the archives.   SPONSORED BY THE BRITISH LIBRARY

Mass Incarceration: The Silence of the Judges Jed Rakoff More than 2.2 million people are currently incarcerated in US jails and prisons, a 500 percent increase over the past forty years. Most of the increase in imprisonment has been for nonviolent offenses, such as drug possession.   ADVERTISEMENT   Unhappy Days for America Nicholas Lemann A review of Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis by Robert D. Putnam   Iraq’s Abandoned City Zaid Al-Ali What does Tikrit’s experience reveal about the way ISIS rules?   ADVERTISEMENT   Stories We Can’t See Tim Parks “What do we see when we read (other than the words on the page)?” asks Peter Mendelsund in a welcome and fascinating new book. Or more precisely, “What do we picture in our minds?”   Airborne Architecture Martin Filler This year’s Pritzker Prize, which will be presented in Miami next week, has taken an unprecedented twist.   Orson Welles at 100 Essays by Gore Vidal, Joseph McBride,Sanford Schwartz, and Michael Wood on the occasion of the director’s centenary   In the current issue: Jonathan Freedland on Tony Judt, Priyamvada Natarajan on images from outer space, Robert Darnton on celebrity, William Dalrymple on the diffusion of Indian civilization, Phillip Lopate on Max Beerbohm, Elizabeth Drew on rigged elections, G.W. Bowersock on faith and money, John Gray on Peter Singer, Joshua Hammer on the Khmer Rouge trials, and more…