Sarah Courteau considers the thesis of Eric Wilson's Against Happiness, that happiness is “an obsession that could well lead to a sudden extinction of the creative impulse.”
Daniel Akst looks at a paean to an underappreciated metal: corrugated iron.
Flora Lindsay-Herrera reviews Uncertain Peril, which examines the brave new world of genetically modified foods and Doomsday seed vaults.
"Like most good histories," writes reviewer Mark Jerome Walters, "Scott Weidensaul’s fascinating account of birding in America dispels many myths."
Bad schools are not going to sink the American economy. Despite what the headlines say, U.S. students fare well in international comparisons. It’s the schools serving the poor that demand our attention.
In February 2009, American television will go digital, and millions of sets will fade to fuzz. It’s but the latest episode in TV’s colorful history, as the living-room set has evolved from a clunky box to a sleek rectangle on the wall.
The Atlantic and Pacific now dominate the world’s politics and trade, but the Indian Ocean is emerging as a new locus of power that increasingly unites China, India, the Middle East, and Africa.
Pouring more concrete will not by itself answer our infrastructure prayers. Look instead to the transformative power of information technology.
When our roads and bridges crumble and collapse, we have one kind of problem. When they don’t, we have another.
The United States has settled for a patchwork approach to infrastructure. To stay ahead in the global economy, it needs to build adaptable networks like the 1956 Interstate Highway System.