From Prospect, when historians matter: On Israel's 60th anniversary, Avi Shlaim, one of the country's revisionist "new historians", looks back on how their work changed the debate over 1948. Was Buckminster Fuller an important cultural figure because he produced inventions of practical value or because he didn’t? Ray Kurzweil is a futurist with a track record who makes his predictions using what he calls the Law of Accelerating Returns. Albert Mobilio reviews It’s Beautiful Here, Isn’t It...: Photographs by Luigi Ghirri. The White House's most successful disinformation campaign? That's not Iraq — it's the war on the estate tax. Esperanto language nerds to tackle globalization at G-8 Summit. Two scholars say most Americans get a healthy dose of political disagreement in their lives because, like moths to a flame, they can't help themselves. On swaps, derivatives and why the Bear Stearns bailout was one big pump-and-dump scheme. From the latest issue of Literary Review, a review of The Bolter: Idina Sackville: The Woman who Scandalised 1920s Society and Became White Mischief's Infamous Seductress by Frances Osborne. From Nerve, no end in sight: An article on aging and the male libido. Robert D. Kaplan comments on what it takes to earn the highest award the military can bestow—and why the public fails to appreciate its worth.