A new and better approach to shaping the places in which we live has emerged just as Americans responding to the rising cost of energy begin to crowd into older suburbs and cities.
The great 19th-century observer of America’s democratic revolution has much to teach the tumultuous new century.
Take some favorable demographics, add a generous shot of American ingenuity, and stir in a very large quantity of natural gas, and you have the beginning of a bright new American future.
They’re long, exhausting, and sometimes appalling, but America’s raucous presidential campaigns are also testimony to the success of its continually evolving democracy.
Though Americans see upward mobility as their birthright, that assumption faces growing challenges, with consequences not just for the size of our wallets but for the tenor of our politics.
THE SOURCE: “The Strange Politics of Gertrude Stein” by Barbara Will, in Humanities, March–April 2012.
THE SOURCE: “The Collapse of the Soviet Union and the Productivity of American Mathematicians” by George J. Borjas and Kirk B. Doran, in The NBER Digest, June 2012.
THE SOURCE: “The New Goliaths” by Margot Sanger-Katz, in National Journal, Feb. 18, 2012.
THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND:
Woody Guthrie and the Journey of an American Folk Song.
By Robert Santelli.
Running Press. 256 pp. $24
THE SOURCE: “I Thought You Were a Poet” by Joshua Mehigan, in Poetry, July–Aug. 2011.