Attention history buffs and political junkies: TIME Magizine’s Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy have released a new book, The Presidents Club: Inside the World’s Most Exclusive Fraternity, and as Joe Scarborough proclaims, “This is…the historical version of crack.” The enthusiastic praise is warranted. I have devoured presidential biographies since elementary school, and The Presidents Club … Read more
Spoiler Alert – This article contains minor spoilers for those who haven’t watched the entire West Wing series. On any given Wednesday night over the past few months, you could find a small group of students sitting breathlessly in one of Harvard’s recreational lounges, splayed out over couches and beanbag chairs, taking part in what … Read more
In the aftermath of Harvard’s exam season I have finally spent some quality time with family at home. Not my own family of course but all the families I’ve neglected throughout the year: the Griffins, the Simpsons, and the Dunphys, among many others. All this family time has given me pause to consider the evolution … Read more
Charles Murray is no stranger to controversy. In 1994, as the co-author of the bestselling book The Bell Curve, Murray inflamed the passions of critics and supporters alike by arguing in the vein of genetic determinism that intelligence was one of the most important factors that determined one’s lot in life. Now 18 years later, … Read more
Most comparisons of President Obama’s prospects of reelection in 2012 and his 2008 campaign focus on factors that he now lacks. He has necessarily lost the novelty, the sense of history-in-the-making, and the image of being a blank slate upon which voters could project their visions of change. Statements about his strengths in the 2012 … Read more
My father was quick to buy the first-generation Kindle. I picked it up off a bookshelf in my dad’s room and marveled. The thin, white, elegant device weighed about the same as each of the 200 books it could contain, their words now converted to ones and zeroes. I knew, even then, that the Kindle … Read more
It’s an election year, and, as we’ve come to expect, political controversy abounds. In the world of investigative journalism and the 24-hour news cycle, candidates’ personal lives are more than fair game. The many mistresses of Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich’s request for an open marriage, and Karen Santorum’s pre-Rick relationship with a much older abortion doctor … Read more
Niccolò Machiavelli’s Discorsi may have become one of the seminal texts of modern political theory, but it was originally a gift to his close friends Zanobi Buondelmonti and Cosimo Rucellai. The three of them would talk politics in the Oricellari gardens of Florence and in their equally fertile letters. Prefacing his work in the third person, … Read more
In the space of an hour, we have already seen a man with a crowbar, a cross-dressing pageboy, and a string of attempted seductions. Act Three opens. As the music begins, a Count, sporting a brocaded jacket with lace at his cuffs, walks solemnly onstage. He looks like he is about to address the Vatican … Read more
In his State of the Union address, President Obama proclaimed, “We bet on American workers. We bet on American ingenuity. And tonight, the American auto industry is back.” President Obama has good reason to be optimistic. Collectively, General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler gained market share against foreign brands for the first time since 1988. GM … Read more