We just posted our August 12 issue to the website, featuring Andrew Bacevich’s story on the opportunities afforded by Brexit, the editors taking on Donald Trump’s anti-democratic and authoritarian rhetoric, and William Storrar considering the use of fevered speech for an angry electorate.

Now, we’re highlighting three other stories outside the realm of electoral politics.

First, Alejandro Anreus writes about how the ambiguous character of Catholicism in Cuba has been shaped its history of conflict and alignment with the nation's government. How does the Cuban church differ from the church in other nations who are traditionally considered more “Catholic”? Cuba’s Catholicism is “neither tragic nor dramatic, but endowed with sensuality and humor, it is also charged with an ironic distance and a healthy anticlericalism.” Read the whole piece here.

Then, Bethe Dufresne travels to Cuba as a first-time visitor, speaking to Americans and Cuban-Americans to consider the country’s future in light of its revolutionary past. She writes, “Cubans want things Americans have, but they know the strength of their own culture, and of their dreams." Read the whole piece here.

Lastly, don’t miss Nathaniel Peters’ book review of Laurus, the long and much-admired novel by Eugene Vodolazkin about a fifteenth-century holy man.

“Laurus is, among other things, an extended meditation on time in light of God’s eternal presence in the created world. A character will prophesy or see a future event unfold during the twentieth century—or perhaps stumble on a plastic bottle that will be left there, centuries later.”

Read the full review here.

See the issue's full table of contents here.