online archive
12:00PM
JUN 25 2007
Law, economics, political theory, philosophy, science and more
Bronwen Morgan (Britol): Reflections on Governance from an International Perspective. Lawrence Solum (Illinois): Constitutional Texting. Robert Mikos (UC-Davis): The Populist Safeguards of Federalism. Thomas DiLorenzo (Loyola): Can Governments Function Like Markets? Austrian Insights into Public-Choice Theory. Jacob Gersen (Chicago): Markets and Discrimination.
From the Carnegie Council, a review of Law, Politics, and Morality in Judaism, ed. by Michael Walzer, a review of Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny by Amartya Sen and Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers by Kwame Anthony Appiah, and a review of Are Women Human? And Other International Dialogues by Catharine A. MacKinnon. John Gray's apocalypse: A sceptic, a wit, and a very English thinker; is John Gray also the best theorist about our troubled world today?
From Ovi, the attempt to divorce mythos (the imaginative) from logos (the rational) is as old as Plato’s Republic. The risk of that intellectual operation is that one ends up in rationalism, what Vico dubs “the barbarism of the intellect," pure reason rationalizing what ought never to be rationalized (and part 2). A review of Conventionalism: From Poincaré to Quine by Yemima Ben-Menahem. An excerpt from Thinking in Circles: An Essay on Ring Composition by Mary Douglas.
From Edge, Steven Pinker and Richard Dawkins on dangerous ideas. Animal Farm: William Saletan on the recombination of man and beast. Ready or not, here comes the post-genomic era. Here's a DIY Guide to Becoming a (Real) Cyborg. From Discover, relativity passes absolute test: Exacting research finds Einstein was exactly right. From Physics Today, the Soviet launch of Sputnik shook the confidence of Americans in the country's defense and in its science. President Eisenhower convened a meeting of scientists in the Oval Office that Hans Bethe called an "unforgettable hour". Out of This World: An article on 60 years of flying saucers.
For 2,000 years, the document written by one of antiquity's greatest mathematicians was ill treated, torn apart and allowed to decay. Now, historians have decoded the Archimedes book. But is it really new? Normally a sanctuary of scholarly meditation, the Vatican Library has been the scene of unusually hectic activity lately, as word has spread that it will close in July for a three-year renovation. An article on the modern librarian, a role worth checking out. A Peculiar Responsibility: American colleges and universities grapple with their ties to slavery. Doing well or doing good? As they seek meaning in their work, MBA graduates are defecting from Wall Street to work for NGOs trying to save the world. Is there life left in the once-rebellious Iranian student body after the ruthless crackdowns of the late 1990s?
12:00PM
JUN 25 2007
American history and politics
From American Heritage, why does America have such strange borders? A review of The Fabric of America: How Our Borders and Boundaries Shaped the Country and Forged Our National Identity by Andro Linklater (and more). Form Alternet, an interview with Christopher M. Finan, author of From the Palmer Raids to the Patriot Act: A History of the Fight for Free Speech in America. From The Brooklyn Rail, a review of From Welfare State to Real Estate: Regime Change in New York City, 1974 to the Present by Kim Moody. A review of The Second Gilded Age: The Great Reaction in the United States, 1973-2001 by Michael McHugh. A review of Rationing Justice: Poverty and Poor People in the Deep South by Kris Shepard.
From TNR, Benjamin Wittes on the Supreme Court's looming legitimacy crisis. Are we all Legal Realists now? Dahlia Lithwick to: Walter Dellinger debate. One-Off Offing: Why you won't see a disbarment like Mike Nifong's again. From Truthdig, an interview with Troy Duster on the forgotten War on Drugs. From Harper's, would you lobby on behalf of a bloodthirsty dictatorship? Some of DC's most prominent lobby firms wouldn't blink. Prepare to be appalled at the utterly amoral practises of DC's lobbying world as the author exposes Washington's underbelly. From The Washington Post, a series examines Dick Cheney's largely hidden and little-understood role in crafting policies for the War on Terror, the economy and the environment. The 'I' word: Why a growing grassroots movement on the left wants to impeach the president — and why Democrats in Washington don't even want to talk about it.
From National Journal, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., has taken on an increasingly visible and influential role six months into her party's new majority — one that few would have predicted when she first ran for the Senate in 1992 as "just a mom in tennis shoes." From Cracked, a look at the 5 biggest pricks in Congress. From The Ripon Society: The Conscience of the Republican Party, the search for common ground: An interview with Howard Baker; and Bob Michel on the truth about Congressional gridlock; and are Americans overtaxed? Robert Greenstein and Ernie Christian debate.
From The Boston Globe, a series on The Making of Mitt Romney. Republican Fred Thompson aims for blogger-in-chief. Navigating certain lawmakers’ websites can be like stumbling through a virtual maze. Other sites are colorful voyages into a member’s life on Capitol Hill. From TAP, long-shot Democratic candidates are the ones taking a stance on many worthy, yet unsung, policy problems. Time for the front-runners to start paying attention. EJ Dionne on how the "good ideas" that voters are demanding mostly have to do with problems that have been framed by the left, not the right. Jonathan Chait on Michael Bloomberg and the David Broderization of America. Rolling Stone political writer Matt Taibbi responds to questions.
12:00PM
JUN 25 2007
Global issues, Asia, Russia, Turkey and Europe
From Ethics & International Affairs, Yvonne Terlingen (AI): The Human Rights Council: A New Era in UN Human Rights Work? A review of Globalizing Democracy and Human Rights by Carol C. Gould. Attacks on Amnesty International and politicians show the Vatican is forcing the issue of abortion firmly back on to the agenda. For a Radical Ethics of Equality: What does it mean today to be anticapitalist? Today, left identity is an identity in crisis. The middle classes have discovered they've been duped by the super-rich: Never have so many of us appeared so well-off yet felt so poor - and we used to believe obscene wealth was victimless. The rich must be penalised: Politicians who run away from this basic principle will never have the nerve to achieve true equality. Jeffrey Owens warns of the threat that offshore tax evasion poses to sovereign governments.
From American Heritage, forgotten but true: Japan attacks the American mainland. Joseph Nye on the rise of Liberal Japan. Japan as a Global Contributor: An essay on envisioning an expanded role in a world of militarism, global warming and multipolarity. Japan has rechristened the island of Iwo Jima, site of one of World War II’s most horrific battles, with its prewar name in an attempt to rectify a misnomer proliferated for a half-century.
From TLS, Putin's list: A review of Tony Wood's Chechnya: The case for independence; Gordon M. Hahn's Russia's Islamic Threat; Timothy Phillips' Beslan: The tragedy of school no. 1; and Anna Politkovskaya's A Russian Diary. After Turkmenbashi, Tajikmanbashi: Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov died in December, but Tajikistan's president is continuing the tradition of bizarre despotism in post-Soviet Central Asia.
From Eurozine, ultra-nationalism is on the rise in Turkey. However, following the wave of protest at the murder of Hrant Dink, observers hoped prime minister Tayyip Erdogan would be forced to take action. Instead: nothing. That ought to be no surprise. After all, it is the State and not the government that runs Turkey. And what the State wants, the State gets. In Turkey, the military and the government are engaged in an all-out struggle for power. The country is deeply divided, and decidedly unstable. Turkish writer Ahmet Altan describes his country's paradoxes and warns of the potentially dire consequences. The "deprivatization" of religion has caused strains in Turkey, the most resolutely secular of nations.
All for one and one for all? Europe is divided on how to unite. In Brussels there is irritation that Poland is playing the "history card" once again. But Germans in particular should be wary of being too quick to judge. An article on France's new foreign minister Bernard Kouchner, a French doctor to cure Trans-Atlantic ills. The French may love their bicycles, but in Paris, only a courageous minority braves traffic on two wheels. Mayor Bertrand Delanoe wants Parisians to consider looking backward. Tidal wave: A look at how Malta fears it may be swamped by migrants. A map of New Switzerland, finally in need of a Navy!
12:00PM
JUN 25 2007
American history and politics
From Reason, the contested legacy of the most controversial founding father: A review of Thomas Paine and the Promise of America by Harvey J. Kaye. A review of Liberty Tree: Ordinary People and the American Revolution. What does Lincoln stand for? Nearly anything we wish: A review of Land of Lincoln by Andrew Ferguson. Juneteenth: Was the announcement of Emancipation really a surprise? From The Atlantic Monthly, an interview with Jack Beatty, author of Age of Betrayal: The Triumph of Money in America, 1865-1900.
From The New Yorker, a revisionist history of the Depression: John Updike reviews The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression by Amity Shlaes (and more and more). Bombings, shootings, and other violence were common during the labor strife of the 1930s, when two unions battled for supremacy in the central Illinois coalfields. A review of Impounded: Dorothea Lange and Censored Images of Japanese Internment. A review of FDR by Jean Edward Smith. A review of 15 stars: Eisenhower, MacArthur, Marshall Three Generals Who Saved the American Century by Stanley Weintraub and Partners in Command: George Marshall and Dwight Eisenhower in War and Peace by Mark Perry. From The American Scholar, The Mystery of Ales: The argument that Alger Hiss was a WWII-era Soviet asset is flawed. New evidence points to someone else.
From Bad Subjects, a special issue on Dead Heads of State/Dead Presidents: Symbolic Death, Social Death & Bone-Rotting Death. From Time, a series of articles on The Lessons of JFK. An interview with James Piereson, author of Camelot and the Cultural Revolution: How the Assassination of John F. Kennedy Shattered American Liberalism.
A review of Nixon and Mao: The Week that Changed the World by Margaret MacMillan. More on Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power by Robert Dallek. Those Weren't the Days: Nixon has been looking better lately compared to George W. Bush. But in fact he's as bad as we remember. An interview with James Reston, Jr., author of The Conviction of Richard Nixon: The Untold Story of the Frost/Nixon Interviews (and a review).
Long on detail but short on revelations: A review of The Reagan Diaries (and more). The canonization of Ronald Reagan rests crucially on one thing Reagan himself did well: forgetting the facts. It seems timely to exhume a few. A look at why less brilliant presidents do better. The Heroic and the Crass: A review on Presidential Courage: Brave Leaders and How They Changed America, 1789-1989 by Michael Beschloss.
