On January 9th, Jared Lee Loughner opened fire at a “Corner Congress” held by Representative Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) in Tucson, killing six people and seriously wounding many others, including the Congresswoman. In the rush to make sense of the tragedy, many in the media cited the relatively recent surge in violent political rhetoric as a … Read more
Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother Amy Chua 256 pp. Penguin Press. $29.95. An excerpt from Amy Chua’s book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother unleashed a firestorm of controversy across the country when it was published in the Wall Street Journal in January. The excerpt, headlined “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior,” portrayed a wide … Read more
“Our spending has caught up with us, and our debt will soon eclipse the size of our entire economy. No longer can we kick the can down the road.” So declared Speaker John Boehner in his maiden speech to the U.S. House of Representatives. In the weeks following Boehner’s assertion, budget battles have consumed Washington, … Read more
The Monroe Doctrine: Empire and Nation in Nineteenth-Century America, by Jay Sexton. Hill and Wang, 2011. $27.00, 304 pp. For a work of academic history, Jay Sexton’s The Monroe Doctrine: Empire and Nation in Nineteenth- Century America is a brisk and rewarding read. In a little under three hundred pages, the author, a lecturer at … Read more
On March 2, the U.S. Supreme Court released its opinion in one of the most controversial cases of its term, Snyder v. Phelps. By an 8-1 majority, the Court ruled that under the First Amendment’s freedom of speech clause, protesters from the Westboro Baptist Church could not be charged with intentionally inflicting emotional distress by … Read more
On March 20, Hugo Chavez once again became the subject of international headlines when the Venezuelan president condemned U.S.-led military action in Libya, arguing that intervention was part of an American plan to control Libya’s oil supplies. Chavez further alluded to the possibility of an American intervention in Venezuela, to which he responded, “Don’t even … Read more
Since its inception in 1913, the Federal Reserve has faced questions over its independence from the political sphere. For the most part, such efforts of politicians and bureaucrats seeking to direct monetary policy have been rebuffed. As Harvard economics professor N. Greg Mankiw told the HPR, “Congress decided that it made sense to have monetary … Read more
Kill the Irishman, Jonathan Hensleigh. Anchor Bay Films, 2011. 106 min. Summer 1976 was not a pleasant time to be a resident of Cleveland, Ohio. Throughout the months, a series of 36 car bombs traumatized the city. These deaths capped a street war between the city’s long-influential Italian mafia and an Irishman seeking to break … Read more
Emma Sky is a Spring 2011 Fellow at the Institute of Politics. From 2007 to 2010, she was Political Advisor to General Raymond Odierno in Iraq. She previously advised the NATO Commanding Generals in Iraq. Harvard Political Review: What role should the outside world, especially the U.S., play in supporting recent revolutions in the Middle … Read more
Deep in theLacandon Jungle of Chiapas, Mexico, a balaclava-clad guerilla puffs on his pipe, spouting socialist rhetoric. “What we’re going to do is shake this country up from below, pick it up and turn it on its head,” he declares. At first glance, the insurgent might seem the emblematic Latin American revolutionary, with ideology from … Read more