Music, politics, and celebrity in the age of Bono Bono jumped eagerly across the stage, swinging his microphone. The Edge launched the guitar intro for “No Line on the Horizon,” the drum line paused, and the towering stage lights flashed, and Bono began. In front of me soared a 160-foot tall, $25 million claw-shaped stage. … Read more
The question of Jewish liberalism Why Are Jews Liberals?, by Norman Podhoretz, Doubleday, 2009. $27, 295 pp. The story of Norman Podhoretz is as complicated as the political history he examines in Why are Jews Liberals? Once a leftist, he moved rightwards in the 1960s to become one of the great voices of neoconservatism. In … Read more
A new perspective on the Iraq war The Good Soldiers, by David Finkel, Sarah Crichton Books, 2009. $26, 287 pp. David Finkel’s The Good Soldiers has incredible stories at its core, and refines them even further, resulting in an account engrossing through its honesty and simplicity. The Good Soldiers is at once thrilling and horrifying, … Read more
The uncertain state of modern conservatism The Death of Conservatism, by Sam Tanenhaus, Random House, 2009. $17, 144 pp. In 1962, legendary ABC News anchor Howard Smith ran an hour-long segment titled “The Political Obituary of Richard Nixon.” Smith proclaimed Nixon, who had just lost the race for Governor of California only two years after … Read more
In Fed We Trust, by David Wessel, Crown Business, 2009. $26.99, 336 pgs. Screenwriters take note: this economic crisis will provide material for decades to come. The story of Ben Bernanke, the soft-spoken economist with humble roots in small-town South Carolina, is on its own the stuff of cinema. Bernanke, a Depression scholar, capped a … Read more
Cass Sunstein meets the Internet Republic.com 2.0, by Cass Sunstein, Princeton University Press, 2009. $19.95. 272 pgs. From Hamilton to Hofstadter, America’s observers have long labeled it a society reinforced by healthy debate. Harvard Law’s Cass Sunstein’s latest work, the awkwardly-titled Republic.com 2.0, offers a vision at odds with this optimistic tradition. Sunstein sees new … Read more
How religions learned to get along The Evolution of God, by Robert Wright, Little, Brown, and Company, 2009. $25.99, 576 pgs. When does God command holy war, and when is he a peacemaker? Robert Wright proposes an answer in The Evolution of God, tracing God’s propensity for intolerance and tolerance through a sweeping history of … Read more
America and her drug problem This Is Your Country on Drugs, by Ryan Grim, Wiley, 2009. $24.95, 272 pg. Drugs in America sometimes bring to mind Woodstock and Hippies, peace buses and communes, flower power and protests, but in This Is Your Country on Drugs: The Secret History of Getting High in America, journalist Ryan … Read more
Surveying the revival of religion God is Back, by John Micklethwait and Adrian Woolridge, Penguin Press, 2009. $27.95, 416 pgs. Our times are defined by rapid revolutions of technology and science; what room is there for religion? Predictions of faith’s demise were commonplace in the mid-20th century, but while secularism triumphed in Western Europe, for … Read more
Predicting political realignment Most discussions of youth politics tout blog posts and text messages rather than grand realignments. Millennial Makeover: MySpace, YouTube & the Future of American Politics goes for the latter, and makes the case that America is at the crossroads of a political realignment driven by the distinct character of Millennials. Though the … Read more