The 50 Year Argument

Since its founding during the New York Times' newspaper strike of 1963, America’s leading journal of ideas has been a source of intelligent and controversial thinking about the issues of our time: human rights, racial discrimination, the wars in Vietnam and Iraq, the women's movement, revolution in Eastern Europe and elsewhere. Heading into its second half-century, the magazine still feels as vital as its founding editor, Bob Silvers, and continues to be relevant in today's digital universe. 'New York Review of Books' rides the waves of literary, political and cultural history in much the same way as the paper itself. Making use of rare footage and photographs to provide historical context, the film features writers James Baldwin, Susan Sontag, Noam Chomsky and Norman Mailer along with new footage of Joan Didion, Michael Chabon, Mary Beard, and Timothy Garton Ash, giving us a portrait of a magazine that has been in the vanguard of provocative ideas and commentary for over fifty years.