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Articles of NoteJeanette has a new hobby: Feigning elaborate illnesses in online support groups. “I have never felt more loved and cared for in my entire life”... more» Biological and cyberwars are stealth businesses. Fingerprints are rare; the perpetrators often unknown. Does retaliation have a future?... more» The Cornell professor Daryl Bem claims to have scientific proof that ESP is real. If so, perhaps he anticipated the outrage of colleagues... more» A Russian art collective is under arrest. Its crime? Staging a public orgy at a Moscow science museum... more» It’s easy to scoff at 20-something former frat boys, maladroit geeks, slackers who resist the trappings of adulthood. Kay Hymowitz takes the bait... more»... more» Is Europe poised for a revival of fascism? The conditions seem ripe: economic collapse, political volatility, antipathy toward minorities... more» Stuttering is “an obdurate barrier thrust into my throat,” said John Updike. For him and others, verbal transcendence has existed only on the page... more» Brash, pompous, and ubiquitous, Niall Ferguson would be insufferable were he not also a little bit charming... more» Researchers in Siberia have managed to breed foxes as tame as dogs. It's a feat that might unlock the genetics of violent behavior... more» The current blueprint for political revolution blends Gandhi, Monty Python, and corporate-style marketing savvy... more» Lev Vygotsky died in 1934. His writings were left unpublished for decades. Yet when it comes to the science of play, no one looms larger... more» Nobody likes a grammar scold, but it must be said: Ambiguity has a death grip on our syntax. The principles of effective speech are in tatters. Verbal chaos reigns... more» Privacy is passé – if not dead. Confessional tweets, narcissistic status updates: We are the Wikileakers of our own lives... more» Does spreading unrest in the Middle East mean a spike in oil prices and doom for the fragile U.S. economy? Maybe not... more» Are you an aspiring adulterer? Noel Biderman is there for you. The motto of his budding Internet empire: “Life is short. Have an affair”... more» Does anyone still care about dangling modifiers? An emphasis on sales and marketing has led publishers to ignore an important truth: Editors are supposed to edit... more» Computers can fly airplanes, but they can’t make plausible small talk. We forget how impressive humans are. Computers are reminding us... more» Frances Fox Piven has been depicted by Glenn Beck as the mastermind of a plot to destroy capitalism. Is the sociologist an enemy of America?... more»... Piven responds We’ve exploded them, shot them with dry ice, and electrified them, but when it comes to manipulating clouds, human ingenuity has met its match... more» Paul Haggis considers himself a curious man. Yet for 35 years he did not question the tenets of his religion: Scientology. Why? The incentive to believe is high... more» For East German teachers of Marxism-Leninism, 1989 wasn’t the year the walls of tyranny came down. It was the year their lives fell apart... more» Sexual violence is rampant in Haiti. Now women wear whistles: Three short toots: “I am being attacked”; one long toot: “Someone has been raped”... more» Jean Toomer insisted that he wasn’t black. But it now seems that the author of Cane was an African-American who passed as white. Does it matter?... more» The government of India is gathering biometric data on its 1.2 billion citizens. But there’s a hitch: The fingerprints of peasants are unreadable after years of manual work... more» The apparent randomness of scratch lottery ticket numbers is a mathematical lie. A geological statistician in Canada has cracked the code... more» A self-taught lepidopterist, Vladimir Nabokov speculated about butterfly evolution. His ideas were long dismissed by scientists. Until now... more» Max von Oppenheim – archaeologist, diplomat, lothario – amassed a stunning collection of Syrian antiquities. He also charmed sheiks and Nazis, and bought slaves... more» The financial crisis revealed a grim truth: Too much prosperity, for too long, tends to devour itself. We crave booms, but they bring on busts... more» Fans of “ruin porn” – artful photos of boarded-up houses and factories – don’t want people in the pictures. They just get in the way... more» William Dalrymple is the literary don of Delhi. The secret to his success? He chews up multiculturalism. “It’s hard being an Orientalist these days”... more» Roger Bannister proved that athletic barriers are figments of our imagination. Except when they aren’t. Has athletic performance peaked?... more» Ai Weiwei’s art is seen as a menace by the Chinese government; so, in turn, the government menaces Mr. Ai. “Police beat me, I nearly died”... more» Daniel Bell, sociologist of big ideas, cultural critic, founding editor of The Public Interest, is dead... NY Times... Washington Post... The Chronicle... Economist... Sam Tanenhaus... Forward... The Guardian... Slate... John Summers... Boston Globe... National Post... New Criterion... Harvard Crimson... Michael Kazin... Daniel A. Bell... Frum Forum... Morris Dickstein... Michael Aronson... Russell K. Nieli... Financial Times... Lindsay Waters Psychoanalysis is routinely derided, even by those in its intellectual debt. But what it lacks in empirical stature, it gains in humanity... more» The WikiLeaks cables read like good literature. Both diplomacy and fiction, after all, feature plots, moral ambiguity, and casual deception... more» Mark Augustus Landis is responsible for the longest, strangest art-forgery spree in American history. But did he break the law?... more» If bird watching embodies our desire to observe nature without destroying it, is the rise of birding a reflection of our anxiety about the environment?... more» Alexander the Great could not conquer Afghanistan, but he did leave behind the drug that ultimately would: Opium. Can the country be weaned from it?... more» The Lisbon neighborhood of Casal Ventoso was a junkie nirvana. Then drugs were decriminalized, and everything improved... more» The 1979 revolution was just one battle in a centuries-old culture war in Iran. A look back suggests a bleak future for the Tehran regime... more» Bill Gates wants to overhaul America’s schools, but his imperious foundation is both damaging public education and undermining democracy... more» Once upon a time, Sherry Turkle had a crush on a robot named Cog and became a celebrity among the geek set. Her passion has cooled... more» Black culture causes black poverty? That view is resurgent, and it’s a perverse obfuscation of American history... more» Why is Galileo portrayed as a stony rationalist when it was his engagement with the arts – The Divine Comedy in particular – that inspired him?... more» A nation unto themselves, today’s super-rich have a geeky enthusiasm for innovation and ideas. They’re changing the meaning of wealth... more» The search for Robert Capa’s lost Spanish Civil War photos ended when contact sheets turned up in a suitcase in Mexico... more» Traditional desserts – cake, pudding – are being eclipsed by peculiar blends of sweet and savory. Parmesan ice cream, anyone?... more» Conferences, books, an academic archive – David Foster Wallace is the focus of a robust scholarly enterprise. “He’s the next canonized American writer”... more» In 2003 a man with a bomb locked to his neck robbed a bank. A short time later, the bomb exploded, killing him. Did he rob the bank to save his life?... more» World population could climb to 10.5 billion by 2050. How many people can the Earth support? “The worst-case scenario may be realized”... more» Bedbugs arouse such fierce disgust. Why? Maybe it’s the prospect of their tiny beaks burrowing into our skin that keeps us awake at night... more» It’s true, our politics has been reduced to sound bites. But it’s not a symptom of Twitter-sized attention spans. Rather, it’s a sign of progress... more» Banele Shabangu is scared. Rightfully so: A man in a mask is about to stick a needle into the base of his penis. Can circumcision save Swaziland?... more» A new specter is haunting our prose: baggy, even illogical sentences. The problem, says Ben Yagoda, involves the elements of “clunk”.... more» Modern fashion took shape during the Renaissance. Chic accessories made the rounds; doctors urged cosmetic surgery... more» Denis Dutton, philosopher, man of ideas, founding editor of Arts & Letters Daily, is dead at the age of 66... NY Times ... LA Times ... WSJ ... The New Yorker ... The Atlantic ... The Guardian ... New Zealand Herald ... Reason ... Edge ... Globe and Mail ... 3 Quarks Daily ... D.G. Myers ... Catallaxy Files ... Lester Hunt ... National Review ... Washington Post ... spiked ... New Criterion ... Sydney Morning Herald ... The Australian ... AP ... Slate ... City Journal ... Open Letters Monthly ... American Spectator ... Cognition and Culture ... Racjonalista ... Mark Bauerlein ... The Chronicle ... Roger Kimball ... Open Democracy ... Eric Crampton ... The Press (NZ) ... NYRB ... TED Talk Libertarianism is having a moment. But it remains the crazy uncle of American politics: loud and cocky, often profound, sometimes unhinged... more» The fifth blow ripped open the back of his head, forcing fragments of skull into his brain. He was dead. The violence, however, went on... more» “When we learn to tolerate boredom, we find out who we really are,” says Naomi Alderman, one of a growing number of boredom enthusiasts... more» “I know I shall hang,” Hermann Goering said from his prison cell. “But in 50 or 60 years there will be statues of me all over Germany”... more» Martin Peretz is a born belligerent. “His anger is so much a part of him,” says his ex-wife, “that he doesn’t realize he’s scaring people”... more» Fat Kat had a knack for guns, drugs, and gangs; also, it turned out, for being a prison librarian. He helped fellow inmates connect to the world... more» “All around me I observe a glowing trail of bloodshed, helping me put together the pieces of a violent puzzle,” writes Angela Strassheim... more» Why is the Hope Diamond so blue? To find out, scientists blasted the gem with an ion beam. The Hope is actually a mosaic of blues... more» Apple sells more than sleekly designed toys; it sells a way of life. Call it Appleism. Google calls it a competitive threat... more» Happy birthday to the suit, now 150 years old. The uniform of capitalism was born out of revolution, warfare and pestilence... more» Puzzle-solving is an ancient, universal practice that depends on creative insight, on the primitive spark that ignited the first campfires... more» The geocentric universe. Stress causes ulcers. A flat earth. Heavier falls faster. Many ideas we once thought were true turned out to be hard to unlearn... more» Frankfurter called Douglas a “completely evil man.” Douglas referred to the Jewish Frankfurter as “Der Führer.” FDR’s Court: scorpions in a bottle... more» Saudi Arabia is to The most recent successful new religion, the only big one for 1,340 years - since Islam kicked off with the Qur'an - began in a 1950 issue of Astounding Science Fiction... more What makes music sad? Most people jump to “minor key” as the answer. But singer and lyrics can mean more than we realize... more» Cheap fried chicken is the last thing we’d predict would send South Korean protestors into the streets. Yet, while cheap is okay for cellphones... more» A new exhibit – politicized, manipulative, and inaccurate – argues that the West’s Dark Ages were a Golden Age for Islam. Edward Rothstein isn’t buying it...more» Worried about the debt? Don’t be. “If Oriental protectionists are foolish enough to send us TV sets in exchange for green pieces of paper, wonderful”... more» Do you think there is a computer screen sitting in front of you right now? Or is the “computer screen” dependent on a mental model created in your brain?... more» The peer-reviewed, double-blind placebo test is the gold standard of modern medical science. Yet does peer review really work?... more» Prosopagnosia, or face-blindness, affects 2.5% of the population. The afflicted cannot recognize faces. Oliver Sacks suffers from it... more» Caffeine addicts can get their fill with the Arts & Letters Daily coffee mug. Also tested with herbal teas. The perfect holiday gift!... Advert» Activist judges are often objects of political dispproval. But if politicians showed more restraint, judges would not have to intervene so often... more» Suicide bombers: fervent automatons who hate the West and its values? Maybe not. Maybe they just want to commit suicide... more» “Appalling.” The snobbish reaction in 1895 to Sherwin Cody’s How To Write Fiction was as predictable as the popular reaction was positive... more» Things certainly look very sweet for now. But what WikiLeaks wants to call “Cablegate” will very likely make life far more difficult for historians... more» The Golden Age of comics. Superman flew across the skies, Batman lurked in the streets, and Wonder Woman unleashed her truth lasso... more» A real-estate game for cash-strapped times, Settlers of Catan is the rage from Stuttgart to Silicon Valley. Forget Monopoly... more» The Great Recession has placed utopian economics on the defensive, but it is too early to hail the triumph of reality-based economics... more» “I didn’t carve up the guy,” says Robert Durst. “I dismembered a corpse.” His sordid, mysterious crimes have now been adapted for the big screen... more» “Art as Empathy,” David Foster Wallace noted in the margins of a Tolstoy essay. Wallace’s archive shows he was not such an abstruse postmodernist... more» With Amazon, publishing is now beholden to one profit-obsessed company. What happens when you sell a book like it’s a can of soup?...more» Thank you, WikiLeaks! U.S. diplomat William Burns’s account of a Dagestani wedding has the President of Chechnya, his gold-plated automatic stuck down his jeans... more» DecorMyEyes.com offers so much: first, the wrong style, then endless phone calls, emails, abuse and threats of violence, lasting for months or years... more» Explicit sex scenes aim to arouse, but Howard Jacobson is not into that. Sex and serious literature, he thinks, make for uncomfortable bedfellows... more» Ruben is six foot three, 225 pounds, neck like a waist. You can hire him: $1,000 for every bone he breaks in his victim’s face... more» We evolved to be interpreters of events, in the world at large and in our own inner lives. This narrative self is part of what makes us most human... more» “I’m doing Facebook, YouTube, and listening to music at the same time,” says Vishal. “I’ll say: I need to stop and do my schoolwork, but I can’t”... more» Every day, Norman Mailer wrote in his small, stifling attic. Amy Rowland tried to write in the same place, but failed. It’s hard to write in another writer’s house... more» If you thought it was only uneducated Muslims in dusty towns “over there” who burned things that upset them, think again... more» Richard Wagner’s music used to change lives. Now we hear it as setting the mood for stage magic: Rhine maidens on wires, and effects we think of as cinematic... more» What makes a psychopath? It might in part be a deep, hard-wired inability to recognize the nature of a social contract... more» Apologists for globalization treat it as a source of benefits, says Alasdair MacIntyre. But it must be known by its vices. Debt, in particular... more» Albert Gonzalez’s gift for deception made him one of the most valuable cybercrime informants the U.S. government has ever had... more» Schizophrenia has long been blamed on bad genes or even bad parents. The real culprit, a new hypothesis claims, is a virus entwined in every person’s DNA... more» Philosophy is not an attempt to secure new knowledge about the mind or beauty or right conduct, says Peter Hacker. It is not even a cognitive discipline... more» A nighttime raid, reality TV crew, and a sleeping seven-year-old. What can we learn from the death in Detroit of Aiyana Mo’nay Stanley-Jones?... more» Online, in bookstores, every aspiring novelist faces a daily tsunami of freshly published words. So what makes any of them think they have something to say that others need to read?... more» Freeman Dyson was a smart kid who wondered how other people could be so dumb. Some have wondered the same of Freeman Dyson... more» “With each day I realize more and more that my mahatmaship, which is a mere adornment, depends on others.” Gandhi’s words were deeply true.... more» “Stop. Security Check. Tasty.” It is an odd concoction of creative, market capitalism and claustrophobic police state security you’ll find in Islamabad... more» Jacques Maritain was inspired by the example of the United States: it showed that a pluralistic democratic system could flourish with Christianity... more» Solar ovens were a great idea for Africa. Except: they need hours to cook food, are useless in rainy seasons, or if you need to cook before dawn... more» Brains like it real. When it comes to using text or image or the real thing in making buying decisions, the human brain prefers reality... more» Of course, we should love, honor and cherish our species, says Mary Midgley. But do we have to worship it as well?... more» Humanitarian aid to Africa can make us feel good about ourselves. It can also underwrite murderous conflict. It started with Biafra... more» From the Venus of Willendorf to Picasso’s jilted lovers, the male eye gazes on the objectified female body. So what of women pop artists?... more» Willam Blake’s London, written two hundred years ago, rather grandly reveals us to ourselves. He might well have called it America... more» Stories beguile us, invite us to suspend disbelief and enjoy ourselves. They are so much more fun than statistics – which in their turn can pack so much more factual information... more» Young conservatives make more friends than liberals, who relate to smaller groups. Conservatives like to show competence, liberals trust. Does this ring true?... more» Subhas Chandra Bose, nationalist leader against the British rule of India, died in an air crash in Taiwan in 1945. Unless the story is a fabrication... more» On Halloween, America market-tests parental paranoia. If a new fear flies on Halloween, it’s probably going to catch on the rest of the year, too... more» Sarah Bernhardt asked Harry Houdini to bring back her amputated leg. That would be impossible, he said. “Yes,” she replied, “but you do the impossible”... more» France, Italy, and their EU friends go all sullen on mention of Germany: amid Europe’s turmoil, Germany is an oasis of prosperous tranquillity... more» |
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New BooksSexual economics 101: Men represent demand, and women supply. It’s a catchy formula, and perhaps obvious, but it little resembles reality... more» The Internet isn’t making you stupid or unhappy or less productive. But it might be subverting your creativity... more» “I was a mistake. My mother didn’t want to have me. I wish, I still wish, she had wanted me.” – Marilyn Monroe, whose life is a feast for Freudians... more» Brain-science enthusiasts promise a more peaceful and prosperous world. Great, right? Maybe not. Raymond Tallis punctures neuromania... more» The economic bleeding has been stanched, but an awful fact remains: Unregulated, oversized finance is inherently prone to crisis... more» Sure, the future of publishing looks grim. But not entirely. A new literary culture is taking root in the digital world... more»... more»
George Santayana thought highly of himself – and little of others, especially his Harvard colleagues and their “trivial and narrow scholarship”... more» It’s true: Few intellectuals change the world. But consider the life of a certain impoverished, carbuncle-ridden Jewish exile... more» In 1940, Hannah Arendt wrote to Gershom Scholem about the suicide of their friend Walter Benjamin. The often adversarial correspondence continued for more than a decade... more» We are drowning in a flood of information. Our task, says Freeman Dyson, is to create islands of meaning... more» Scientific efforts to create life are heavily freighted by thousands of years of mythmaking about what science can and should be. John Gray explains... more» How did the armies of Mordor cope with defeat? A retelling of The Lord of the Rings is more complicated and less sentimental than the original... more» If belief in God is an adaptive illusion, then fear of God’s watchful eye might explain our predisposition to moralistic religious beliefs... more» Charismatic and obscene, Bobby Fischer seemed entirely too fantastic. Garry Kasparov tried to look away, but he couldn’t... more» A Dictionary of Modern English Usage, published in 1926, remains a remarkable achievement. So why don’t modern linguists understand the book’s function and genius?... more» Joyce Carol Oates has long walled off her identity as a writer from her identity as a wife. True to form, her memoir of life as a widow reveals little and obscures much... more»... more» Among his celebrated peers, Saul Bellow alone courts lastingness, he alone escapes eclipse. Cynthia Ozick explains Bellow’s enduring appeal... more» Montaigne’s self-absorption feels contemporary, but he was no proto-blogger. He aimed for self-discovery, not self-display... more» In the history of adultery, a blurry line distinguishes prostitutes from concubines, mistresses from wives, victims from villains... more» Writings about yoga tend to come in one of two styles: cute and folksy or earnest and humorless. What the genre needs is an injection of sincerity and wit... more» The Roman historian Livy viewed the glorification of chefs as indicative of a culture in decline. What would he make of the pompous gluttony of modern foodies?... more» Elizabeth Bishop wrote slowly and published little – fewer than 100 poems in her lifetime, each one a model of quiet, scrupulous perfection... more» In 1996, Susan Sontag remarked on the decline of film culture: “Perhaps it is not cinema that has ended but only cinephilia.” She had it backward... more» Samuel Johnson derided slang as “fugitive cant” unworthy of preservation, but the low idiom of thieves and beggars has evolved into a highbrow linguistic tradition... more» Stan Kenton’s futuristic jazz and button-down style drew fans for years. He may have dressed like a church elder, but his personal life resembled a junkie’s... more» Courage. Chivalry. Brutality. War. Jerusalem contains them all. The city’s past, and less still its present, offers little hope for a peaceful future... more» The fact that J.D. Salinger was a peculiar and difficult man is indisputable. Too bad a new biography diminishes his odious eccentricities... more» Smaller brains, too much estrogen, penis envy – they’re among the arguments for female inferiority. Such theories are a thing of the past, right? Wrong... more» The Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal attracted many admirers – along with a well-earned reputation for self-promotion and even fraud... more» Young Irving Kristol was alert to the ambivalences of politics. He grew charming and wry – but simplistic and dogmatic. Therein lies a problem for neoconservatism... more» Late in life, Rousseau acknowledged that it was arrogant of him to promote virtues he couldn’t live up to. Sorry, Socrates, the examined life isn’t what it’s cracked up to be... more» The ancient world was hardly full of starry-eyed universalists. But even then, categorizing and hating people en masse was a choice, not a necessity... more» In the eyes of many foreign journalists, India is a nation of Gatsbys and Babbitts engaged in a manic quest for status and wealth. Time for a reality check... more» Claude Lévi-Strauss is today maligned as a relativist who placed primitive cultures on a pedestal. He long ago anticipated the criticism... more» Frank Sinatra remolded the world according to his own desires. At his core, however, he was consumed by pain and anxiety... more» Fed up with academe, Herbert London decamped for the think-tank world. His first assignment: Buy heroin in Harlem... more» What happened to academic sociology? The lucidity of Weber and Mills has been replaced by a vapid, turgid, self-referential claptrap... more» Alan Lomax built his career upon a single belief: that the world’s poorest places offered the richest cultural treasures... more» Dietrich Bonhoeffer was devoted to God and opposed to Hitler. We should be impressed by such courage and faith, but not in awe of it... more» Economic and scientific innovation helped propel the West past the East around 1770. So did Islam. Timur Kuran explains... more» Christopher Isherwood detested the way marriage “drags down and shackles and degrades” men. Yet he was a pioneer of gay domestic partnerships... more» While some Western historians are reluctant to describe the Soviet Union as “totalitarian,” Russia’s president, Dmitri Medvedev, has no such qualms... more» Jürgen Habermas has a two-fold persona: opaque philosopher and lucid polemicist. Peter Gordon says they stem from a single calling... more» Dismissed as a clownish entertainer, Cab Calloway was in fact a creative genius. Terry Teachout sings the praises of “Minnie the Moocher”... more» The Founding Fathers remain central to American political debate. Historical myths are easy to mock, and Jill Lepore “is an expert at mocking”... more» Victorian Britain craved lurid reports of crime and murder. Newspapers were happy to oblige. By comparison, ours is a golden age of journalism... more» Born in the Soviet Union, buried in Venice, a citizen of America, the poet Joseph Brodsky was a nowhere man – a universalist and a cosmopolitan... more» John Cage’s music sounds like an argument between form and chaos. His curiosity bled into his art. “I’m interested in going to extremes”... more» Rigorous, disciplined, disarmingly unnatural – no artistic endeavour is more physically or psychologically demanding than ballet... more» 19th-century anarcho-radicals bombed cities and assassinated political figures. Then, as now, policing terror sometimes means encouraging it... more» Tony Judt’s memoir was composed as an antidote to insomnia, a bulwark against insanity. The result reveals a conservative streak... more» Yuli Margolin spent six years in a gulag. His 1949 memoir, with its gimlet eye for literary detail, should have appeared in English decades ago... more» The new Steve Martin novel is a nasty exercise in narcissism – a lazy, complacent and forgettable book. If it is a satire, it satirizes only itself... more» Harrowing essays, political tracts, literary criticism: The extraordinary life’s work of Thomas De Quincey. Not bad for a drink-soaked opium addict... more» Tariq Ramadan regards tolerance as mere “intellectual charity.” He doesn’t want it. Ramadan’s view, though fashionable, is without meaning... more» Does America have a national character? It’s an important question; too bad historians stopped asking it. Claude Fischer tempts them back into the fray... more» The first printing of Sidereus Nuncius sold out in a week. Galileo’s elegant prose undid centuries of conformity and launched observational science... more» Aberrant Marxist, heretical Jew, maverick social theorist – Walter Benjamin remains many things to many people... more» There is something very modern, almost New Agey, and endearingly insecure, about George Bush’s tone and posture in Decision Points... more» When Sergei Diaghilev emerged in fin-de-siècle St. Petersburg, ballet was passionless, mechanical, and dead. It was time for a new kind of dance... more» Cass Sunstein is a brilliant, intellectually honest legal thinker. He is a progressive who is also very pragmatic, perhaps too much so... more» George Washington disapproved of it, and so did Benjamin Franklin. The Tea Party wasn’t such a good idea the first time around... more» Computers are wreaking havoc on the English language. We hear this sort of thing whenever a new writing instrument becomes dominant... more» Giacomo Leopardi’s great love poems tend toward the unrequited. In his odes on Italy, beauty and grandeur always fade toward the horizon... more» Human rights as a lovely end of Western history is a late 20th century fancy used to justify ruinous wars of intervention. It is mere utopian dreaming... more» Voltaire possessed an endless appetite for putting himself in harm’s way: duels, insults to nobility. He always squeaked by... more» “I have no tendency to be a saint,” John Henry Newman said, in words that were part of his own self-outing... more» Both FDR and Eleanor embraced a large family of intimate companions and lovers which they both accepted. “It was part of their generous spirit"... more» Picture the academy: If you’re thinking plushy professors, jargon-laden research, and debt-strapped students poised for a career in rag picking, think again... more» What makes a cultural critic great? Expertise, fine taste, firm judgment, aesthetic leadership – whatever it is, the superb, ruthless, and biting Terry Castle has it... more» Mao Zedong is the father of the Chinese nation – disgraced, discredited, and irreplaceable. In the West, a non-ideological view of Mao has rarely been available... more» The term “conscious” was introduced in 1678; within 50 years it had acquired at least five definitions. The ambiguity has not abated... more» Nelson Mandela is no saint. His life has combined greatness with pettiness, compassion with coldness, altruism with selfishness... more» Known to his Arab comrades as Prince Dynamite, T.E. Lawrence understood that explosives are both a weapon and a political statement... more» Susan Sontag called him “our Sartre.” For Bill Buckley he was a “bisexualist, a poverty cultist, an anarchist.” So many reactions to Paul Goodman... more» By the time Crazy Horse, “strange man of the Oglalas,” died, he was the most divisive figure in the tribes of the Great Sioux War of 1876-77... more» W.H. Auden: “it’s rather a privilege/amid the affluent traffic/to serve this unpopular art.” Monica Jones chose to serve the art of Philip Larkin... more» The Holocaust’s power to shock: from Babi-Yar, where SS units machine-gunned 33,000 Jews in two days and threw them in a ravine, down to postwar atrocities... more» The romance of the “foreign film” began just after the war for Americans with Open City. The affair lasted for twenty years, well into the 1960s... more» The romance of the “foreign film” began just after the war for Americans with Open City. The affair lasted for twenty years, well into the 1960s... more» Richard Wagner’s erotic interest was not lurid, voyeuristic, or morbid, but human: alert to desire, joy, longing, torment, and despair... more» David Foster Wallace’s undergrad thesis is a virtuoso performance. Less certain is whether it tells us anything we need to know about his fiction... more» With their drollery, mordancy, heart pains, soul talk, and metaphysical vaudeville – the whole human mess – Saul Bellow’s letters are a Saul Bellow novel... more» Martha Nussbaum would have us think of sexual orientation in the same way that most of us think of religion. The analogy works – to a degree... more» The long battle waged by Karol Wojtyla against Poland’s communists and their Moscow masters was a struggle over the survival of communism itself... more» A city compounds many worlds in one place. Rebecca Solnit’s poetic atlas of San Francisco isn’t a guide, so much as it’s a provocation...more» H.L. Mencken despised the “booboisie,” yet delighted in the gross, glittering, dynamic, grotesque, stupendous drama of American life...more» Consciousness used to be the crazy aunt in psychology’s attic, up there squeaking the floorboards and troubling our dreams of science... more» The revolution will not be Tweeted. Look about the military-Twitter complex: there is little to support claims for vast political power of social media... more» Easy communication between languages is a lovely ideal, but it is a myth. In reality, it would mean eternal misunderstanding... more» The Atlantic Ocean: cold, iron, and salt; knife-sharp winds and the keening of gulls; sea lanes, docksides, and squadrons of steadily moving ships... more» Mark Twain described his memoir as “frank and free and unembarrassed.” But Judith Shulevitz found it tamed, evasive and, indeed, embarrassed...more» What is remarkable about Oscar Wilde’s formalism is that it is so human. This may come as a surprise: we tend to think of his aesthetics as hothouse stuff... more» Stefan Zweig was a cosmopolite: the kind of Pan-European emancipated Jew who managed to shed all belief systems with the exception of pacifism... more» Most scientific biographies used to put their subjects on pedestals. Today, priority and grudges shape the history of science as much as the science... more» Germany is fast becoming a smaller and stupider country. Outrageous! And yet Thilo Sarrazin’s claims contain too much truth to dismiss... more» Ballet is a “conservative and insular art that resists change,” says Jennifer Homans, thus linking it to beauty and nostalgia and noble ideals... more» Will English find itself in the service of the world community forever? Given how easily languages can be dethroned, this seems an unlikely prospect... more» Oliver Sacks again invites readers to explore the mysteries of the human mind with essays on people with drastically altered perceptions... more» Romain Gary challenged Clint Eastwood to a duel over an affair with Jean Seberg. Eastwood declined, but he was still French ambassador to Hollywood... more» Henry VIII’s mistress, Anne Boleyn, was the Camilla Parker Bowles to Catherine’s People’s Princess. Women hated that “goggle eyed whore”... more» Yes, the Chicago Manual of Style trudges through each new edition, workhorse that it is. But even in the new 16th, it remains a poet. Even a dancer... more» Scientists fight for recognition and jobs just like doctors, artists, and actors. They are bold, shy, plodding, brilliant, generous, and spiteful. Just human beings... more» Thelonious Monk’s audiences heard music that was, to their worldly sensibility, better than a miracle: not just astonishing, it was believable too... more» Americans use language to cover the sleeper, not to wake him, James Baldwin said, which was why the writer as artist is so important... more» When the Southern states seceded in 1861 and the Civil War broke out, Britain’s instinct was to stay out of the action. Too much tension, however... more» Charles de Gaulle’s life shows the truth in the claim that no man is a prophet in his own land. Le grand Charles did not always enjoy reverence in his homeland... more» Self-help books: pap from sea to shining sea, diaphanous lunacy, simpleton dullness. One fears for a nation awash in this drivel... more» Nietzsche: a gentle professor who liked to think of himself as a wild beast on the rampage, an intellectual terrorist out to destroy Christianity... more» We plunder the Atlantic Ocean, gobble up its fish and dump our plastic water bottles into it. Still, the Atlantic has a resilience all its own... more» So we’re celebrity-obsessed? Look back to antiquity to find the most dazzling of them all. Cleopatra made no films: coins minted and stories told were enough... more» Claude Lévi-Strauss’s great idea was that both myth and kinship were part of the most elementary processes of human thought... more» The growing concern for Soviet Jewry in the 1960s was part of a generational shift in American Jewish identity. It changed how U.S. Jews saw themselves... more» Procrastination: under its antic form of action-as-inaction is the much more unsettling question whether anything is worth doing at all... more» | |
Essays and OpinionA film school in Baghdad was bombed in 2006. The director, now in bulletproof vest, remains uncowed: “We have neither money nor power, but cinema can make our voices heard”... more» “You are hereby invited to watch me face the firing squad.” With that, Boris Pasternak handed off the manuscript of Dr. Zhivago. The book’s relevance remains undiminished... more» David Foster Wallace: His skill as an essayist is indisputable, but what about his fiction? The clever, ostentatious prose is catnip for grad students. As for the rest of us... more» Who killed the femme fatale? The dark queen of film noir – smoldering truth-teller, erotic schemer – has disappeared from the silver screen... more» What if Stalin’s Great Terror was an act of self-defense? Of course you’re incredulous, but revisionism reigns in the moral chaos of post-Soviet Russia... more» “Each time I write something I promise myself I’ll never do it again,” says Arundhati Roy. “The fallout goes on for months. Increasingly, like of late, it turns dangerous”... more» Populism has crept into the high-art world, so that museum-going now provokes vexing bouts of intellectual insecurity... more» What do thoughts look like? Ted Serios, a volatile, alcoholic bellhop from Chicago, set about capturing his on film, literally... more» Lewis Carroll, Chopin, Flaubert: All, we're told, suffered from temporal lobe epilepsy, which explains the strange delirium of their creative lives. The diagnosis also suggests a new understanding of genius... more» Russia’s political elite is exceptional in its ignorance. Meet defense minister Anatoly Serdyukov, a former store clerk who can hardly distinguish a destroyer from a tugboat... more» “Never again” has never been more than an empty promise, and there’s no reason to believe it will ever be otherwise. So suppose genocide isn’t preventable. Then what?... more» Is philosophy of science an obsolete pseudo-discipline? Stephen Hawking thinks so. But his work relies on the very sort of speculations that philosophers invented... more» More women are covering themselves, more mosques are being built, more preachers are preaching. However, the Islamization of the Middle East has in fact depoliticized Islam... more» What happens when a liberal feminist plays The Sims? She becomes a hawkish, stay-at-home mom who favors low taxes and small government. But of course... more» Walt Whitman’s Civil War verse was initially simple, boosterish, and full of masculine heroics – no “dainty rhymes” for him. The carnage at Fredericksburg forever changed his perspective... more» The revolutions in Tunisia and Cairo clarify many things. Here’s one: Economic gains do not ensure political stability. Are you listening, Beijing?... more» If you want to build a better society, advises Robert Wright, don't bother with fancy philosophers. Epistemology, phenomenology, metaphysics, and $2.50 will get you a ride on the New York subway... more» What does it mean to prepare for death? For Ann Hulbert’s cancer-stricken mother, it meant refusing medical treatment. “I’m impatient to die,” she murmured. But her family wasn’t ready to let her go... more» Californians used to be an optimistic and self-confident breed, their home a harbinger of America’s utopian future. Today, however, the Golden State exudes hopelessness... more» In 1927 Barbara Follett published a much-praised first novel. She was 13. The book was about a young girl who disappears. In 1939, Barbara vanished... more» Humans are adept at reasoning about mental states – our own, others’, even God’s. But consider the implication: God as a figment of our overactive theory of mind... more» The 19th century Russian revolutionary Mikhail Bakunin – globe-trotting anarchist, conspiracy-minded madcap – attracted a cultlike following. Sound familiar? Julian Assange is Bakunin with a laptop... more» The Apprentice was a flop in Russia, where people aren’t interested in reality shows about aspirational business types. Maybe it’s because they know where those folks end up: jail... more» Weak writing, amateurish acting, haphazard plotting: Mad Men says little of substance about the world it depicts. So what explains its widespread appeal? Daniel Mendelsohn has a theory... more» Icon of a revolution. Four-term president. When Vaclav Havel retired, many expected him to fade away. He had another idea: direct his first film. “It is the last adventure of my life”... more» What happened to Andrew Ross? The studliest cultural-studies stud of the 90s used to theorize about porn and Madonna. Now he’s turning out wonky treatises on labor policy... more» Marriage. Children. Career. Why rush? You’re affluent, educated, and in your 20s; slacking is a form of self-discovery. This trend demands scholarly justification. Thus, “emerging adulthood”... more» The media don’t shape the culture; they merely reflect it, giving rise to today’s common readers: Those who have fallen in love with their own mediocre taste... more» Welcome to the new age of cultural populism: Elites are in retreat; hoi polloi have taken over. Could anything be more American?... more» Egypt is shaking. All eyes are on the Muslim Brotherhood, the oldest and strongest opposition movement in the country. Who are these people? What do they want? more» When it comes to writing sentences, we’re told – by Orwell, by Strunk & White – that brevity is best. But a minimalist style can encourage minimalist thought, and that’s a problem... more» Living morally can be an arduous and unpleasant business. So why bother? Because living well depends on that very struggle. Ronald Dworkin explains... more» The trouble with today’s elites isn’t that they attended Harvard or Yale. It’s that during their time there they cultivated a taste for challenging books, big words, and boring films... more» Both novelists and philosophers ask big questions and try to impose order on the muddle of the world. But can a novelist write philosophically?... more» In the developing world, the wacky, superstitious, cuckoo aspects of some religious beliefs can seem as rational as Western science... more» Literary fiction is a sanctuary from everything coarse and shallow. Or so many novelists believe. It might explain why they’ve long ignored the Internet... more» The photos of Eadweard Muybridge were a technological triumph. Industrialization, however, inflicted damage; Muybridge captured that too... more» “Our problems require solutions that neither the pure market, nor pure liberal democracy can adequately deal with,” says Eric Hobsbawm. We need a different mix... more» Among other faults, Mao lacked a sense of humor. Sarcasm, parody, and mockery were snuffed out of communist China. Irony, however, is now making a comeback... more» Have you heard the one about how postmodern extremists on a vendetta against science have overrun anthropology? Hugh Gusterson has, and he’s not amused... more» Central bankers were to be the austere, ever-watchful last line of defense against financial crisis. At that they succeeded – and therein lies the problem... more» Allen Ginsberg had a serene air about him, like Yoda, but with bigger ears. At least that’s what Tyler Stoddard Smith remembers about him. Oh, and that Ginsberg peed on his shoes... more» Political violence today is undertaken without explanation: No appeal to conscience, law, or the opinion of mankind. Permission to kill anybody is now assumed... more»... more» We are in the middle of a revolution in consciousness, writes David Brooks. Like theology and philosophy, brain science will change how we view ourselves and the world... more» Paul Theroux is 69, a good age to begin an autobiography. But after 500 words, he stopped with a realization: He can’t be trusted to tell the truth about himself... more» Science is capable of defeating death? That’s an old delusion, writes John Gray. “Science enlarges what humans can do. It cannot reprieve them from being what they are”... more» Few tyrannies will be tweeted out of power. But over years and decades, social media will enhance democracy. Be patient, urges Clay Shirky... more» For centuries of writers, New York City has been hard to resist. Walt Whitman was entranced: “There is no place with an atom of its glory, pride, and exultancy”... more» Benjamin Franklin thought it an abominable practice, our incessant verbing of nouns. But we can’t help ourselves: Texting, friending, parenting, bookmarking... more» Holocaust education has been a failure. It has made us uniquely gullible about the real enemies of liberal democracy... more» End the war on drugs and you end the black malaise in America, says John McWhorter. “Before long, the image of blacks as eternal poster children would fade away”... more» “Philosophy is dead,” succeeded by science, says Stephen Hawking. But theoretical physics has abandoned empiricism and entered the realm of, well, philosophy... more» P.T. Barnum offered up America as a nation of believers who, thanks to their pragmatism, didn’t actually believe in much of anything... more» Alan Sokal’s 1996 hoax suggested that the left’s critique of science would ultimately prove damaging to the left. He was right... more» President Obama doesn’t pursue a foreign policy bent on global domination like his predecessors? Think again, says John Mearsheimer... more» There is no such thing as evangelical Christianity: The term represents a range of different theologies, practices, and religious movements... more» Brutal, corrupt, and morally complex, Russia is the ideal setting for a novel. “A great slab of unprocessed pain sits toxically on the country’s heart”... more» The shore of the Aral Sea in Karakalpakstan is one of the strangest Jason Larkin has ever seen: “neither sand, mud, nor salt-crystals, but a chemically-mutated mash-up of all three”... more» Faith and reason are not rival forms of knowledge. They are, in fact, complementary: Faith is religion’s answer to the challenge of reason... more» Is America in decline? Yes, says Paul Kennedy. But don’t worry too much: Things aren’t going badly wrong, they’re just returning to normal... more» The career of a suicide bomber lasts only an instant. He presses a button and flash of light turns a Nobody into a Somebody. An incompetent Somebody, maybe, but... more» Edward Hopper was a painter without any sense of humor, wit, or self-awareness. He relied on cliché; it’s all he understood... more» Matt Ridley generates competing views wherever he goes. And if we ask what got humanity from its poor past to its rich present, maybe the wondrous variety of life is a key metaphor... more» Writing about science poses a problem right at the outset: You have to lie, to choose inexact pictorial metaphors that allow nonscientists to put new scientific findings in proper perspective... more» Roaring colors, bright lights, strange and perverse sights up every alley – welcome to Istanbul, a vital city at the epicenter of a political catastrophe... more» Francis Fukuyama is puzzled: A rise in inequality has failed to drive support for a fairer distribution of wealth. How to explain this? Maybe it’s because America is a plutocracy... more» Natural is not always good. Nature is in fact cruel, brutal, and odious; and living naturally is an ugly, amoral, and awful business... more» A PhD may offer no financial benefit over a master’s degree. It can even reduce earnings. It is expensive to acquire and may unlock the door toward a slave-labor job. So why bother?... more» In defense of disgust. Is the emotion of disgust a result of natural selection? Surely in part it must be. But does evolution give us a complete picture?... more» Our intellectual life is becoming reactionary: opportunities are viewed as threats, hopes as dangers, progress as the unraveling of all that is beautiful and true...more» As China ditches communism for despotic state capitalism, Chinese intellectuals are turning to Leo Strauss and Carl Schmitt for insight. What an unexpected taste in Western philosophers... more» Gossip: dismissed as a vice, it is in fact a social necessity, a way of building alliances and friendships. No wonder diplomats are great gossips...more» No doubting Charles Darwin was the greatest biologist of the 19th century. A shame, however, that his star has obscured another bright mind of the time: Richard Owen... more» MFA programs are no longer hotbeds of literary inculcation, but the university has become the economic center of the literary fiction world... more» The information revolution, we used to hear, was going to break the shackles of geography and make cities irrelevant. We’d all sit before our flat screens and – and what?... more» Public speaking consistently ranks as one of life’s most stressful events, up there with divorce, bereavement and foreclosure. Pity, then, the plight of the stutterer... more» The reader meant to compliment Carl Klaus. “In the book, you’re always so articulate. I wish I could talk like that.” Come to think of it, he wished he could too... more» Isabel Hapgood’s 1891 Atlantic Monthly profile of the passionate Count Leo Tolstoy turned out to be oddly prophetic in terms of the novelist’s life... Intro ... Profile Unauthorized biographies: Public service or unseemly studies of the frailties of the famous? Kitty Kelley with a high-minded defense of a low-level pursuit...more» The octothorpe, #. It’s lived under many names: the hash, the crunch, the hex (in Singapore), the flash, the grid. In some circles it’s called tic-tactoe, in others pig-pen... more» Simply place the word “radical” in front of any Muslim name and the actual person magically disappears in a cloud of suspicion... more» After the shock is gone. Pity the poor artist, heir to Marcel Duchamp, trying to advance a career by attracting attention from the jaded art world audience of today... more» Art is beauty, expression, and energy in a form that emerges in its own time and on its own terms, says James Panero. So is the frenetic life of the web compatible with decent art criticism?... more» Flaubert of Foggy Bottom, Dickens of Dupont Circle. Christopher Hitchens searches for a novelist who can capture the cynicism and tedium of life in the U.S. capital...more» Science vs. art. “The great wall dividing the two cultures of the sciences and the humanities has no substance,” says Jonathan Gottschall. “We can walk right through it”... more» By stressing exchange as the key mechanism in the success of our species, Matt Ridley underplays education, law, patents, and science. Bill Gates likes Ridley’s message, but... more» We must get beyond the idea of classical music as a conduit to consoling beauty – a spa treatment for tired souls. Instead, use Berg and Ligeti to hear Bach and Mozart with new ears... more» “Nabokov writes prose the only way it should be written: ecstatically.” Lila Azam Zanganeh wanted to know more about what John Updike thought of Nabokov. So she picked up the phone... more» With its eclectic cocktail of ingredients – Greek, Roman, Persian, pagan and Christian – Qusayr Amra was Islam’s first stab at creating a courtly culture... more» Public health morality points its accusing finger at pleasure. But pleasure is a good. Governments should spend less on curbing smoking and more on promoting dancing... more» The château’s being crowded out. No doubt about it, Takashi Murakami and Jeff Koons look great in Versailles. But does Versailles benefit from having these works in its halls?... more» In the 1990s, backpackers set off for the Third World by the droves. Enthralled primarily by one another, they regarded the natives with a mix of contempt and suspicion... more» “In a better, purer world,” writes David B. Hart, “ambition would be a disqualification for political authority.” In our world, we elect those who have the ego-besotted effrontery to want office... more» Resentment is not a zero-sum game because there is an infinite supply of it. A billionaire can resent just as well as a pauper: and, of course, vice versa... more» Christopher Hitchens collapsed first on the New York leg of his tour, and had fluid drained from around his heart. An oncologist performed a biopsy... more» The stigmatization of public virtue – and with it, devotion and care, is an insidious business, says Frank Furedi. Giving blood is not an act that ought to be on your CV... more» “I happen to be an anti-Stalinist and an anti-Nazi,” says Noam Chomsky, “so I don’t think that the state should be granted the right to determine historical truth”... more» Anton Chekhov is a mystery. Does he admire his characters or pity them? It’s never obvious. And that dark irony, that pitiless gaze that make him truly our contemporary... more» Expanding secularism may have set back religion severely as a force in history, but in doing so, it made life easier for some fundamentalists... more» History should never be used to inculcate virtuous citizenship. Yet it offers the richest imaginable source of moral examples – the essence of great fiction, drama, and life itself... more» Ed Dante, academic mercenary, will ace your Psych 101 term paper, or help “earn” you a Ph.D in history. If you have the money, Ed has the talent. Especially likes working with seminary students... more» “The process of writing fiction is totally unconscious,” says Nadine Gordimer. “ It comes from what you are learning, as you live, from within. For me, all writing is a process of discovery”... more» “In an academic environment that rewards being smart, how do I broach the idea that people with intellectual disabilities are fully equal?” Chris Gabbard on his son, August... more» Can’t say we didn’t know enough. Our recent housing bubble was inflated despite – partly because of – amazing computer power, reams of data, and sophisticated models... more» Why do so many intellectuals now pay polite obeisance to the historically absurd idea of separate domains for science and religion?... more» As G.B. Shaw put it, “Custom will reconcile people to any atrocity” – including the use of animals in some scientific research. But can scientists guide us in drawing moral lines?... more» McSorley’s was a bar in a village in a city. But how can you have a village in a city? Robert Day wondered. By the end of August that summer, he understood... more» Lenny Bruce suggested that to suppress a word gives it all the more power. Banning hate speech cannot be a means of dealing with harm it causes... more» Picasso’s feelings for communism were mirrored in his feelings about Catholicism. “My family they have always been Catholics”... more» “I too am tempted to eff the ineffable,” writes Roger Scruton. “I want to describe that world beyond the window, even though I know that it cannot be described but only revealed”... more» Wallace Stevens’s poetry is more beautiful, and Robert Frost’s often more powerful, than T.S. Eliot’s. But the latter’s, once read, refuses to leave the mind... more» Fukuyama, Huntington, Mearsheimer: three visions of the relation of the modern West to the rest. Three sets of ideas that connect, interlock, reflect, and short-circuit each other... more» That John Stuart Mill, apostle of freedom, should have so enslaved himself to such a woman as Harriett Taylor shows that more is needed to be free than to live in a free country... more» We live in an age where ordinary technical problems are dramatized and amplified, made into threats to civilization. Look what’s happened to nightly TV weather forecasting... more» In the hospital room, soon after her surgery, Hilary Mantel was seriously sick and delusional. “Don’t worry!” she wisecracked before anyone else could, “It’ll be fine! It’s just like The Exorcist.”... more» The elimination of poverty ought to be within our grasp, and yet for hundreds of millions of people over the globe, it remains but a dream. Why can’t the world’s wealth be shared?... more» Entrepreneurs aren’t greedy: they are “lucky fools” whose delusions of pleasure create new wealth, new jobs, and new industries for the more timid. They risk it all that we may prosper... more» In Russian, chairs are masculine and beds are feminine. So do Russians think of chairs as being more like men and beds as more like women in some way? Yes, says Lara Boroditsky... more» Homer’s Odyssey, the most magnificent travel record of all time, is about one man’s courage, cunning, and will to prevail, with or without help from the gods. It is also about wisdom... more» Conservatives love war, as long as it remains sublime in Edmund Burke’s sense, with the aura and mystery of violence, pain, and death held at a distance. Corey Robin explains... more» The Tea Partiers warn of an ominous New Elite that controls America. About that, at least, they are right. Not that the Elite itself knows exactly who or what it is... more» The rise of populist anti-Islamic forces in northern Europe appears to reflect a betrayal of Europe’s renowned social tolerance. Yet it’s a situation fraught with complexity... more» “Will language have the same depth and richness in electronic form that it can reach on the printed page?” Don DeLillo asks, “Does poetry need paper?”... more» John Mitchell, Jr., the “Fighting Negro Editor,” would “walk into the jaws of death to serve his race.” A man of courage, passion, talent, and triumph in the face of racial hatred... more» Real friendship involves risk. If a computer screen you ultimately control comes between you and your “friend,” then it was not authentic friendship in the first place... more» Reading Lolita at twelve: I saw the world through wiser eyes. What girl had that “soul-shattering, insidious charm” that made the antennae of certain adult males tremble?... more» In Easy A, adolescent boys pay the lovely heroine for the privilege of saying that they slept with her. For our age – or any age – it’s the double standard writ large... more» Many books offer more wisdom and self-criticism than Gone with the Wind, or give us less fantasy and better realism. Still, such tattered volumes remind us of the readers we once were... more» When he began Dilbert, Scott Adams mocked the very firm he worked for. “If you knew my backstory, you could sense my personal danger in every strip.” Yes, he got fired... more» Taxidermy, the chemistry of the morgue, is a cult obsession with contemporary artists, observes Simon Schama. Yet how much in this idea is really new?... more» “The collapse of the stellar universe will occur – like creation – in grandiose splendor,” No, Blaise Pascal did not say this. Werner Herzog explains... more» Real ants offer no lessons in human moral conduct, says Deborah Gordon. Brave soldiers, dutiful factory workers: this is the stuff of our fictions, not insect behavior... more» Somerset Maugham found it odd that Henry James ignored the most important fact of his day, the rise of the U.S. as world power, for the tittle-tattle of European drawing-rooms. Therein lies a lesson... more» |
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