Matt Hanson

New Orleans

Writer and Editor at American Purpose

Writer/ Editor for The Arts Fuse and American Purpose. Masshole newly installed in the South. Byline in all kinds of places. Opinions are my own, whoever I am

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Articles

Rock Album Review: Nick Cave's "Wild God" -- A Time for Joy

Sep 21, 2024 | artsfuse.org | Matt Hanson

By Matt HansonWith the release of Wild God, his stirring 18th studio album, it seems as if the charismatic poète maudit has achieved, and more impressively maintained, his own version of peace. Nick Cave is one of the few living singers I can think of who knows his way around both the sacred and the profane. According to Mutiny in Heaven, a documentary about his early years with The Birthday Party, Cave’s raucous band was fueled by an obsession with the wrathful God of the Old Testament.
Book and Film Globe

Sep 4, 2024 | bookandfilmglobe.com | Michael Washburn |Neal Pollack |Matt Hanson |Stephen Garrett

We have problems in Texas right now, but at least we don’t have these problems. Or do we?
Life in China’s Crosshairs

Jul 22, 2024 | quillette.com | Liam Hunt |Thomas Doherty |Greg Koabel |Matt Hanson

Jin-class Chinese nuclear submarines are circling Taiwan. A few miles away, the Taiwanese coast guard is on high alert, ever-ready to respond to what increasingly feels like the inevitable. For decades, Chinese officials have claimed that the independent nation of Taiwan rightfully belongs to China and signalled that they’re willing to use military force, if necessary, to bring it under their control.
American Assassinations

Jul 21, 2024 | quillette.com | Thomas Doherty |Greg Koabel |Matt Hanson |Fred Litwin

Killing the right person can change history. Even scholars with a disciplinary commitment to the idea that technological determinants, Marxist dialectics, and other impersonal forces inexorably shape the course of human events have to reckon with the transformative impact of a single life that, once snuffed out, derails a timeline and leaves the survivors to ponder the might-have-beens. Would the better angels of our nature have prevailed had the derringer of John Wilkes Booth jammed?
Dutchmen on the Hudson

Jul 19, 2024 | quillette.com | Greg Koabel |Matt Hanson |Fred Litwin |Jeffrey Herf

What follows is the twenty-first instalment of The Nations of Canada, a serialised Quillette project adapted from Greg Koabel’s ongoing podcast of the same name. While this series is called “Nations of Canada,” readers will have noticed that many of the events being described did not take place in what is now Canada. There are two reasons for these excursions.
The Man Who Wasn’t There

Jul 19, 2024 | quillette.com | Matt Hanson |Fred Litwin |Jeffrey Herf |Jason Andrew Garshfield

A review of Nick Drake: The Life by Richard Morton Jack; 576 pages; John Murray Press (June 2024)I first heard Nick Drake’s music in a Volkswagen commercial, of all things, during the late 1990s. A couple gazed at each other in a moonlit car while an English voice crooned about a pink moon over a wistfully strummed guitar. The product didn’t interest me, but that commercial sparked my lifelong devotion to Drake’s music.
A Conversation with Lahav Harkov

Jul 19, 2024 | quillette.com | Pamela Paresky |Matt Hanson |Fred Litwin |Jeffrey Herf

In an interview by Pamela Paresky, Lahav Harkov, a journalist and political analyst, discusses the Israeli parliamentary system, highlighting the challenges of forming coalitions and the voter’s role in selecting parties over individual candidates. She examines the tension between ultra-Orthodox Jews, exempt from military service, and the secular community, emphasising the need for mutual recognition in achieving peace agreements.
Springsteen's U.S.A.

Jul 1, 2024 | americanpurpose.com | Francis Fukuyama |Matt Hanson

There was Nothing You Could Do: Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.” and the End of the Heartland by Steven Hyden (Hachette Books, 272 pages, $32.00)Is there an American song as iconic and yet as easily misinterpreted as Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.”? The title alone sure sounds patriotic at first glance, especially when those words are sung in the raw, charismatic way that Springsteen renders it. There’s precious little distance between singer and listener.
Book Review: "This Isn't Happening: Radiohead's "Kid A"" -- An Enduring Soundtrack for our Malaise

Jun 6, 2024 | artsfuse.org | Matt Hanson

By Matt HansonSteven Hyden’s This Isn’t Happening, a book-length appreciation of Radiohead and Kid A is one of the best books I read all year. This Isn’t Happening: Radiohead’s “Kid A” and the Beginning of the 21st Century by Steven Hyden. Hachette Books, 256 pages, $27. Buy at BookshopOnce, many years ago, I made the tragic mistake of not bringing my CDs with me on a road trip with the family. All was not lost; I did have my discman.
Book and Film Globe

Jun 5, 2024 | bookandfilmglobe.com | Matt Hanson

When I first saw Gus Van Sant’s To Die For on a rented VHS as a high school kid in the 90’s, it seemed a little far out at the time. I watched plenty of TV as a kid growing up, but my family was resolutely anti-cable, so the satire on reality TV and the nascent national obsession with trials and true crime mostly went over my head.