online archive
5:00PM
AUG 28 2008
Beautiful minds on the shelf
A new issue of Politikon is out. From Mother Jones, here are five good things Bush has done. From TNR, here's the surprising inside story of how Obama scored the DNC keynote speech that made his career; and diplomacy for Barack Obama is more than an instrument, it is a mentality. The introduction to Philosophy and Real Politics by Raymond Geuss. The first chapter from The Price of Everything: A Parable of Possibility and Prosperity by Russell Roberts. A review of Republicans and the Black Vote by Michael K Fauntroy. The first chapter from What a Mighty Power We Can Be: African American Fraternal Groups and the Struggle for Racial Equality by Theda Skocpol, Ariane Liazos and Marshall Ganz. An excerpt from Betrayal: How Black Intellectuals Have Abandoned the Ideals of the Civil Rights Era by Houston A. Baker Jr. Beautiful minds on the shelf: A review of Great Ideas: Series Three. It’s a Maddow, Maddow World: MSNBC’s fresh-faced host glows under the hot lights in Denver. From Prospect, flirting with Stalin: Little wonder that Putin has been able to exploit nostalgia for Soviet "greatness"; is behavioural economics such a big deal? Pete Lunn and Tim Harford debate; and why Hamlet's heirs are happy: Shakespeare's prince was a gloomy sort, but a trusting society makes today's Danes rather jolly. From Jewcy, an article on Zizek for Jews.
1:00PM
AUG 28 2008
What they wear
From Social Policy, an essay on Building Organiziations in a Movement Moment; a look at the struggle over voting rights and the future of progressive politics; an article on living wage policies and Wal-Mart; an excerpt from Transforming the City: Community Organizing the the Challenge of Political Change; and a review of books on grassroots community organizing. From Foreign Affairs, Richard Holbrooke on The Next President: Mastering a Daunting Agenda; Robert Kagan on The September 12 Paradigm: America, the World, and George W. Bush; Stephen Biddle, Michael E. O'Hanlon, and Kenneth M. Pollack on How to Leave a Stable Iraq: Building on Progress; a review of 1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War by Benny Morris (and more and more and more); and a review of Freedom's Battle: The Origins of Humanitarian Intervention by Gary J. Bass. A review of A Path Out of the Desert: A Grand Strategy for America in the Middle East by Kenneth M. Pollack. From The Philosopher's Annual, here are the ten best articles published in philosophy this past year. From TLS, a review of Artists in Exile: How Refugees from Twentieth-Century War and Revolution Transformed the American Performing Arts by Joseph Horowitz. What they say may not be as important as what they wear: Convention fashion, explained.
9:00AM
AUG 28 2008
What’s the big idea
From Critical Mass, Mark Athitakis on the state of alt - weeklies. The road to Wikipedia: A review of Reinventing Knowledge: From Alexandria to the Internet by Ian McNeely and Lisa Wolverton. From THES, Encyclopaedia Idiotica: Wikipedia is created mostly by teenage male computer nerds, so Martin Cohen worries about its growing clout among scholars; a manifesto to discard elitism: A review of Uses of Literature by Rita Felsk; a review of Punctuation: Art, Politics and Play by Jennifer DeVere Brody. From CQ, now, just where are those Clintonites who won’t vote for Obama? David Greenberg on why the Democrats should fix the nominating system. Rogue State: Jonathan Chait the case against Delaware. From Boston Review, Elaine Scarry on presidential crimes: Moving on is not an option. More and more and more on Vincent Bugliosi's The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder. Robert Solow reviews Bad Money by Kevin Phillips. From Dissent, a review of The Big Squeeze: Tough Times for the American Worker by Steven Greenhouse (and more and more) and Love the Work, Hate the Job: Why America’s Best Workers Are Unhappier Than Ever by David Kusnet; and is "The Wire" too cynical? The End of the End of the End of History? The conflict between Russia and Georgia was a turning point of some kind; Scott McLemee wonders what’s the big idea.
