Seventeen years ago, in a devastating song, Lou Reed portrayed Forty-Second Street and Times Square as the “Dirty Boulevard.” Looking at this same place today, we would have to call it “the cleaned-up boulevard.” What can we say about life …
After World War I, a French general was asked how one fights the Germans. “Retreat and retreat,” was the reply, “and wait for the German mistake.” So it has pretty much been with the Democratic Party generals after the watershed …
China’s New Nationalism: Pride, Politics and Diplomacy by Peter Hays Gries
Recent political developments in Europe and America present two apparent paradoxes. First, much of what remains of the radical left has aligned itself with extreme Islamic political movements that promote the establishment of religious regimes in Asia and Africa, with …
Getting ready for the Olympic Games in Turin
Barbara Ehrenreich’s Bait and Switch
Barbara Bergmann makes a good case for the priority of certain “merit goods” over cash grants—a position I think most basic income supporters would agree with—but her argument breaks down when she attempts to prove, through the example of Sweden, …
Over the past five years, four successful revolutions have occurred in Serbia, Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan, overthrowing pseudodemocratic regimes and bringing to power new coalitions expressing commitment to democratic reform. There is now enormous interest in revolution among democratic activists …
T. R. Reid’s The United States of Europe, Jeremy Rifkin’s The European Dream, and Mark Leonard’s Why Europe will Run the 21st Century
The incompetence and cruelty of the Bush administration, currently on view in Iraq and New Orleans, may suffice to get the electorate to reduce Republican ascendancy in the Congress in 2006 and put a Democrat in the White House in …
Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson’s Off Center
On a trip to Portland, Oregon, in 2004, I wandered into the Whole Foods Market, where shoppers are greeted with soft-hued lighting, high ceilings, and carefully groomed displays of choice desserts and organic foods. The overall effect is more like …
John Hoerr’s Harry, Tom, and Father Rice
Yoram Peri looks at the Israeli army and state after disengagement
Recalling another Republican who ignored flood victims
