beyond the election

Broken: A Primer on American Political Disorder Adam Garfinkle
It’s no one thing: Rapid global economic change, institutional deficiencies in governance and plutocratic smarm have reinforced each other to create one huge tangle of a problem.

The Federal-State Crack-up Mario Loyola
For decades, both Democrats and Republicans have been invested in governance schemes that have eroded the Constitution’s separation of powers.

wide lens

The New Bipolarity Michael Wesley
A new kind of bipolarity is returning to global politics. At one pole stand states invested in a rule-based international order. At the other stand those intent on unconstrained raison d’état. And America is stuck in the middle.

War and the Intellectuals Stephen Peter Rosen
The tendency of America’s highly educated elites to oppose war and assume an adversarial posture against the government turns less on principle than it does on sociology.

higher ed

The End of the University as We Know It Nathan Harden
The higher ed revolution is coming. Just a few decades hence, half the colleges and universities in the United States will have disappeared, but schools like Harvard will have millions of students.

Stress Test: Why the College Admissions Process Is So Nerve-Wracking William M. Chace
The process of getting into college grows more expensive, arcane, mysterious and nettlesome by the year for families and students alike. It doesn’t have to be this way.

What is College For? Noah Smith
The student loan bubble may very well be about to burst, but a college education is itself still more than “worth it”—especially for a democracy.

reviews

Chasing the Djinn Amy B. Zegart
For more than two decades now, al-Qaeda and other jihadi groups have matched wits and wiles against U.S. intelligence and counter-intelligence efforts. Two new books score the contest.

Purity and Responsibility Lawrence Rosen
A new book on Islamic law is long on abstractions but short on assessing actual experience. The result is an exercise in erudite misdirection.

The Math Behind the Meltdown Chris Taylor
The history of the renowned Black-Scholes formula on options pricing weaves through several centuries and many countries. That history, were it better known, would have inspired a little of the humility that was in such short supply in the world of finance before September 2008.

Lost in Translation: James Bond's Istanbul Sean R. Singer
The premiere of Skyfall marked Agent 007’s return to Istanbul, but which Istanbul? Certainly not Ian Fleming’s, whose contempt for the place drips from the pages of From Russia with Love.