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Pakistan’s remote and poorly understood tribal region has emerged as key to the future of both Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Words may be failing economists and others who characterize the economic downturn that began in 2008 as “the Great Recession.” “Mini-Depression” may be more like it.

When wages stagnate and inequality rises, Americans try to borrow their way toward the American dream. Inevitably, the bubble bursts. But we can learn from the lessons of 1929.

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The role of the welfare state in today’s economic crisis recalls the part played by the gold standard in the calamitous 1930s.

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Remembering Christopher Hitchens.

THE SOURCE: “Google Effects on Memory: Cognitive Consequences of Having Information at Our Fingertips” by Betsy Sparrow, Jenny Liu, and Daniel M. Wegner, in Sciencexpress , July 14, 2011.

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The best books reviewed in the WQ this year.

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THE WILD LIFE OF OUR BODIES:
Predators, Parasites, and Partners That Shape Who We Are Today
By Rob Dunn.
Harper. 290 pp. $26.99

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You read it first in the WQ.

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LIFE ITSELF:
A Memoir.
By Roger Ebert.
Grand Central. 435 pp. $27.99

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