Jessica M. Marglin— Terrorism; attacks on a kosher supermarket in Paris; fights over who can pray on the Temple Mount, known in Arabic as the Haram al-Sharif. When we juxtapose Jews and Muslims today, these are the sorts of associations that usually come to mind. The conflict in Israel/Palestine, and
Caroline Winterer— In the dark years of World War II and the Cold War, Americans invented a national mythology that we hold dear to this day: the myth of the “American Enlightenment.” Like a bomb shelter made of ideas rather than concrete, the American Enlightenment (capital A, capital E) spun
Arthur Eckstein— Weatherman—the Weather Underground Organization—was the most famous group of young people committed to revolutionary violence to emerge out of the late 1960s. In protest of American racism and the Vietnam War, they detonated more than two dozen dynamite bombs between 1970 and 1975, and hit some spectacular targets,
Stephen Skowronek— The rap on Hillary Clinton’s leadership is that she fails to convey any high purpose. When she tries to rally the nation to her cause, she falls back on what has long been the common sense of American government: pragmatic problem solving, social and economic amelioration, nimble adaptations
Benjamin Ginsberg— Over the past year, America’s political waters have been roiled by a host of investigations and revelations aimed at influencing the outcome of the 2016 presidential election. Republicans fired the opening shots by launching a congressional investigation of Hillary Clinton’s role in the deaths of U.S. embassy officials
The long-held belief that the Declaration of Independence calls for a small government may not be an accurate assessment. Historian Steve Pincus, author of The Heart of the Declaration: The Founders’ Case for an Activist Government, discusses the meaning of this seminal document as well as its continuing influence in
Angela Cummine— Last week, Alaskans received their annual dividend check from the Alaska Permanent Fund. The $53 billion savings fund was set up in 1976 to preserve and augment a share of the state’s resource revenues for future generations through prudent investment in financial markets. Every year since 1982, a
Andreas Fahrmeir— U.S. citizenship has emerged as an issue several times during this year’s presidential campaign. There were debates on whether birthright citizenship is (and should be) protected by the constitution, and concerning the relationship between birth in the U.S. and descent from a U.S. citizen in determining whether individuals
Carl Death— The Paris Agreement on climate change is set to enter into force on November 4, 2016, after its ratification by more than fifty-five countries representing over 55% of total greenhouse gas emissions in early October 2016. This was hailed by US President Barack Obama as “a historic day
From our London office: In recent months, the rise of far-right parties in different European countries and events such as the UK’s vote for Brexit have prompted heated debates about immigration and cultural integration across Europe and the world. Tarek Osman, author of Islamism: What it Means for the Middle East and the