Skip to main content

The context you need, when you need it

When news breaks, you need to understand what actually matters — and what to do about it. At Vox, our mission to help you make sense of the world has never been more vital. But we can’t do it on our own.

We rely on readers like you to fund our journalism. Will you support our work and become a Vox Member today?

Join now

Emmett Rensin

Former Deputy First Person Editor

Latest articles by Emmett Rensin

I went into the woods a teenage drug addict and came out sober. Was it worth it?
Features

A large, unregulated wilderness therapy program treats thousands of teenagers each year. When I was 17, I was one of them.

By Emmett Rensin
Culture
Baffled by Trump and American right-wing populism? Read The Limousine Liberal.Baffled by Trump and American right-wing populism? Read The Limousine Liberal.
Culture

Trump is campaigning to return to an America that never existed. The Limousine Liberal explains why his approach is working.

By Emmett Rensin
Culture
Game of Thrones’ High Sparrow didn’t rape, murder, or pillage. People hated him anyway.Game of Thrones’ High Sparrow didn’t rape, murder, or pillage. People hated him anyway.
Culture

The problem wasn’t his religion. It was his judgment.

By Emmett Rensin
American atheists are on the rise. They have radically different visions of the future.
Features

Among the stated goals of this year’s Reason Rally are comprehensive sex education, acceptance of climate science, and an end to discrimination against the gay community. Is this only the Democratic Party, in secularly inflected tones?

By Emmett Rensin
Culture
Michael Herr is dead. Read a passage from Dispatches, his masterpiece on the Vietnam War.Michael Herr is dead. Read a passage from Dispatches, his masterpiece on the Vietnam War.
Culture

I will say that Dispatches is not an easy book to summarize or to draw cheap lessons from. It is about the war in Vietnam, of course, and it is a condemnation of the war, but like all excellent nonfiction, it is not a solution but a complication.

By Emmett Rensin
Politics
Shaun King explains why he thinks the Democratic Party can’t be savedShaun King explains why he thinks the Democratic Party can’t be saved
Politics

“I don’t believe the Democratic Party when it comes to issues of racial justice, of prison reform.”

By Emmett Rensin
Culture
The lunacy of Silicon Valley is no secret. But Dan Lyons’s Disrupted goes much deeper.The lunacy of Silicon Valley is no secret. But Dan Lyons’s Disrupted goes much deeper.
Culture

The book rises above the typical tech industry rant.

By Emmett Rensin
The smug style in American liberalism
Criminal Justice

How liberals came to look down on the people they once tried to help.

By Emmett Rensin
Culture
Maggie Nelson’s genre-busting The Red Parts dabbles in memoir and true crime and transcends bothMaggie Nelson’s genre-busting The Red Parts dabbles in memoir and true crime and transcends both
Culture

The book, originally published in 2007 and newly reissued, has a hook that could only ever work in nonfiction.

By Emmett Rensin
Culture
Book review: In Other Words, about learning Italian, is a work of remarkable diligenceBook review: In Other Words, about learning Italian, is a work of remarkable diligence
Culture

A collection of essays written in Italian and then translated to English, the book captures the process of learning a new language.

By Emmett Rensin