From underdog to alpha

From Foreign Policy, a breakdown of the countries where being born female can be a cruel fate; why do some countries succeed when others struggle? An interview with Nobel laureate A. Michael Spence of the Commission on Growth and Development; and had the Bush administration officials simply replaced the word “Japan” with the word “Iraq” in a secret memo from 1943, the course of the war might have been vastly different. The scandal that shook Brideshead: The Lygons of Madresfield Court, inspiration for the doomed aristocratic family in Waugh's novel, were almost destroyed when their patriarch was outed as a homosexual — instead, they banded together. A special report on how Obama went from underdog to alpha. Hillary didn't lose — Barack won. Thomas Frank on why Obama needs a better reading list. From TNR, a review of A History of Histories: Epics, Chronicles, Romances, and Inquiries from Herodotus and Thucydides to the Twentieth Century by John Burrow. What barriers stand in your way to the polls? The methods are far less conspicuous than fire hoses and more legally ambiguous than poll taxes and literacy tests. Robert P. Baird reviews Seven Notebooks by Campbell McGrath. Introducing Europe's weird ways: Phallus fights and other strange traditions. America's massive military budget is irrational, costly and dangerous; why isn't it a campaign issue?