Closer To Rude Than Snide (opens in new tab)

Leonard Benardo | Ideas Letter | 25th June 2026 | U An Interview with Leo Robson Pauline Kael attends an awards ceremony at Sardi’s in New York City on January 30, 1977. © Abner Symons/WWD/Getty Criticism is not a secondary form of creation but a distinct craft, Leo Robson argues in this conversation with Leonard Benardo. Tracing its flourishing after World War II through a generation of charismatic public intellectuals who made criticism both glamorous and culturally consequential, Robson re...