Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

New on nybooks.com: Edward Hopper’s world, the case for a strategic partnership between the US and China, the new Whitney Museum’s inaugural exhibition, the peculiar 2016 election campaign, al-Qaeda and ISIS, and the exhilaration of roaming an unfamiliar city.   SPONSORED BY YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS

A Partnership with China to Avoid World War George Soros The US government has little to gain and much to lose by treating the relationship with China as a zero-sum game. It could, of course, obstruct China’s progress, but that would be very dangerous.   ADVERTISEMENT   On Edward Hopper Mark Strand Something lifts the paintings beyond the representational registers of realism into the suggestive, quasi-mystical realm of meditation. Moments of the real world, the one we all experience, seem mysteriously taken out of time.   In the New Whitney Ingrid D. Rowland Much of the gallery space is devoted to the theme of machines, with the real industrial landscape visible through the window to act as a constant counterpoint, challenging, illuminating, informative, to the artwork on the walls.   ADVERTISEMENT   2016: The Peculiar Election Elizabeth Drew There are numerous uncertainties about what will happen on November 8 of 2016, nearly a year and a half from now, but one thing is not in doubt: it’s a very peculiar election, perhaps the most peculiar yet.   Al-Qaeda vs. ISIS Ahmed Rashid The West must recognize that the ground is shifting quickly across the region and the Arab Spring is now on the verge of turning into an Islamic fundamentalist winter.   The Joy of the Street Charles Simic If one wishes to inform oneself about a country, its people, and its customs, there is no better way than roaming one of its cities and seeing how the rich and the destitute live.