Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

New on nybooks.com: Cass Sunstein on phishing for phools, Elizabeth Drew on the politics behind the Iran nuclear agreement, and Geoffrey O’Brien on the solitude of Patti Smith. PlusMichal Matlak’s conversation with Stanley Hoffmann, J. Hoberman on Robert Zemeckis’s 3-D film The Walk, and Francine Prose on The Lobster’s dystopian view of love. SPONSORED BY DIAPHANES Why Free Markets Make Fools of Us Cass R. Sunstein The Nobel Prize–winning economists George Akerlof and Robert Shiller believe that once we understand human psychology, we will be a lot less enthusiastic about free markets and a lot more worried about the harmful effects of competition.   ADVERTISEMENT   How They Failed to Block the Iran Deal Elizabeth Drew The fight in Congress over the Iran deal will go down as one of the major foreign policy struggles in this country’s history. Legislative fights involving grave issues of security are supposedly conducted on a higher level. But never before in memory was the vitriol so strong.   Her Private Papers Geoffrey O’Brien Patti Smith’s M Train opens with the declaration: “It’s not so easy writing about nothing.” The words are spoken by a dream cowboy, establishing from the start a freedom in moving in and out of frames, and in speaking from within a private space.   ADVERTISEMENT   Europe for the Right Reasons: A Conversation with Stanley Hoffmann Michal Matlak I knew all three of the Kennedys. Teddy was my student. He was not a genius, but he was a good person. The other two, Bobby and John Kennedy, struck me as hard-nosed, calculating machines.   The Truth in Midair J. Hoberman The Walk, Robert Zemeckis’s new 3-D movie, is not a fully sustained experience. But it is a milestone in the development of digitalized cinema and the memory of 9/11.   Totalitarian Love Francine Prose Yorgos Lanthimos’s new film, The Lobster, takes on the subject of modern love. It posits a dystopian near-future in which it has become illegal not to be part of a couple.   CONVERSATION Luc Sante talks about The Other Paris, his new book on the city’s hidden past and seamy underside, withIan Buruma (Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers, November 3)   DISCUSSION Daniel A. Bell discusses his book The China Model withMark Danner, Andrew Nathan, Timothy Garton Ash, and Orville Schell(Asia Society, October 15)