From NYRB, a review of Putin: The Results: An Independent Expert Report by Boris Nemtsov and Vladimir Milov; an interview with George Soros; and a review of books on Michel de Certeau. The simplification dodge: Robert Kuttner reviews 100 Million Unnecessary Returns: A Simple, Fair, and Competitive Tax Plan for the United States by Michael J. Graetz and Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (And Stick You With the Bill) by David Cay Johnston. A review of Sneaker Wars: The Enemy Brothers Who Founded Adidas and Puma and the Family Feud That Forever Changed the Business of Sport by Barbara Smit. The dictators are back, and we don’t care: With the fall of communism and the rise of globalisation in the 1990s, the West believed democracy had won — how wrong it was (and a profile of Robert Kagan, a neocon by any other name). Leon Wieseltier reviews Martin Amis' The Second Plane (and more from Bookforum). A simple and deceptively tricky question: What does a president do? Eric Banks reviews Tintin and the Secret of Literature by Tom McCarthy. Men and their mothers, what's it all about?: Why is the mother-son relationship so complicated? You are the river: An interview with Ken Wilber, on religion, New Age fads and the ultimate reality that traditional science can't touch.
