Essays

In Pakistan, people see Al Qaeda as an imagined threat, and shadowy U.S. agents as the secret power behind major events. How can the United States forge a better partnership with this country that has become the epicenter of global terrorism?

As the leader of the farm workers’ movement, Cesar Chavez became an iconic figure of the 1960s. But his union was largely a failure. It was as a martyr who embodied the psychic contrast between Mexico and America that he commanded our attention.

The Arab world today is ruled by contradiction. Turmoil and stagnation prevail, as colossal wealth and hypermodern cities collide with mass illiteracy and rage-filled imams. In this new diversity may lie disaster, or the makings of a better Arab future.

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Photo of statue of Joseph Pulitzer by Pete Toscano via flickr

Today, as newspapers are shuttered and reporters panhandle for work, it's worth remembering Joseph Pulitzer, whose taste for sensationalism and sense of public service midwifed American journalism into the modern era.

When Michael Barone began his career as a political observer, Los Angeles was like Des Moines by the sea and America was transfixed by the Vietnam war and the counterculture. Nobody saw the deeper forces that were beginning to transform the nation.

The search is on for graceful strategies for exiting Iraq and Afghanistan. Apart from victory, history suggests, there are none.

The book, that fusty old technology, seems rigid and passé as we daily consume a diet of information bytes and digital images. The fault, dear reader, lies not in our books but in ourselves.

In the long history of the book, the mass-produced volumes of our time constitute only a single chapter. More remain to be written.

The Obama administration has revived the dream of building high-speed rail lines to rival those of Japan and Europe, but the tracks are littered with political and financial obstacles.

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