Brian Fagan— Sustainable catches. These magic words now appear on many higher-end restaurant menus. Many top chefs and organic markets are working with fisherfolk to handle only catches from maintainable fisheries. This is wonderful and socially responsible, but how does this move stack up against the bigger picture of severely
David Wolpe— We wish our heroes to be attractively flawed: brave but heedless, good but confused, wise yet inexplicably sad. A minor crack in character makes the vessel seem that much more precious. Still, while acknowledging the complexity behind the clarity of Lincoln, or the darkness that lurked beneath Churchill’s
Neal Gabler— She always seemed to be an example. She was an example of chutzpah. As one fan would say of Streisand’s legacy, “For me, it began with her first revelation: by shoving a Jewish girl’s face in front of the cameras she was announcing, beneath all the self-deprecation, I’m
Jeffrey Rosen— Recognizing Brandeis as an American prophet seems more relevant today than ever. Brandeis’s consistent opposition to the curse of bigness made him one of the greatest constitutional philosophers of the twentieth century. He is also the Jeffersonian prophet whose prophecies have been most consistently vindicated. The “people’s lawyer”
Ben H. Shepard— The answer to the question of why the German army fought on as long as it did was an answer that evolved and changed during the war’s final two years. By February 1943, and by the summer of 1943 at the very latest, the great majority of officers and
Early civilizations came about with the domestication of fire, plants, animals, and humans. James C. Scott gives us the history of these early states and the problems they faced.
Naomi Pfeffer— The existence of for-profit cadaver purveyors is no secret. Yet, it remains a largely invisible issue. Naomi Pfeffer’s thought-provoking work documents the history, politics, and ethics of the cadaver part trade in the United States and Britain as well as the incredible profits made from unpaid—and often unwitting—sources.
Howard Gillman and Erwin Chemerinsky— Can public universities use concerns about violence to deny requests to have white nationalists speak on campus? Recently, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill joined Michigan State, Penn State, the University of Florida, and Texas A&M in denying a request by white nationalist Richard
Bruce Ackerman— Begin on an optimistic note: Americans of the twenty-first century are much better equipped for citizenship than their counterparts were at the dawning of the Progressive era. About 10 percent of young Americans graduated high school in 1910; it was almost 80 percent a century later. The length
Philippe Joseph-Salazar— First, let us remember that terrifying images of throat-slitting are not new. The atrocity of which our discourse community is (not) aware is more than a decade old: It did not begin with the execution of the American journalist James Foley, beheaded on prime time in August 2014.