Decline or Renewal?

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Table of Contents

In Essence

A look back at Daniel Patrick Moynihan's 1965 report.

The 500-year-old technology of the book may be poised for assisted living, or maybe even perpetual care.

Not since the election of JFK has America chosen a president so closely associated with the Ivy League.

Not only is trimming pervasive, says the government's new regulatory czar, it is also honorable.

There are signs of change in what one scholar calls “the poisonous domestic political climates in both Tehran and Washington.”

"International institutions channel the United States’ power and enhance its security," say two Dartmouth political scientists.

Niche reporters and correspondents from overseas now dominate the Washington press corps.

The American Revolution may be more accurately viewed as a series of local civil wars.

Baby names paint a remarkably revealing picture of village life in western Uganda from 1900 to 2005.

European blackbirds can give pitch-perfect renditions of urban noises, even copying the annoying sound of a golf cart backing up at a golf course.

A stream of archaeological discoveries is dramatically pushing back the dates of objects that were surely shaped by the hand of early man.

The shape of the brain may be critical to the causes of such mental disorders as schizophrenia and autism.

There's the devil to pay when a church gets stuck with a Modernist masterpiece.

Stamping out piracy in the Gulf of Aden is not as simple as sending in more warships.

Americans think the Chinese are nationalistic, authoritarian, conformist, and deferential. All of those presumptions are wrong.

Book Reviews

Essays

Wherever there's a debate over gay marriage, free speech, or even smoking in public places, the arguments John Stuart Mill made in On Liberty are still in the thick of the action.

Christopher Clausen

Ethnic and religious violence keep Russia s North Caucasus region in the news. A portrait of daily life in one small village reveals a richer, more hopeful reality.

Margaret Paxson

Throughout history, many intellectuals have been willing to write their society's obituary long before the game was up.

Arthur Herman

It’s no cause for celebration, but the global financial crisis shows why the United States remains the indispensable nation.

Tyler Cowen

A sympathetic critic issues a wake-up call for an America mired in groupthink and blind to its own shortcomings.

Kishore Mahbubani

As Mexico steps up its war against the brutal cartels that supply the United States’ drug habit, leaders on both sides of the border face tough questions about how to combat a problem that threatens the very fabric of Mexico’s democracy.

Alfredo Corchado

“Here lies Europe, overwhelmed by Muslim immigrants and emptied of native-born Europeans,” goes the standard pundit line, but neither the immigrants nor the Europeans are playing their assigned roles.

Martin Walker