Can the polis live again?: The modern world has withered public space and its virtues. Serious information used to be relayed in words, graphs and charts, while pictures were just pretty window dressing — that's all changing. Opening of world's tallest tower marks end of Dubai era. Armchair Travelers: The Renaissance writers and humanists Petrarch and Boccaccio turned to geography to understand the works of antiquity. 60 Minutes and Vanity Fair team up for a new monthly national survey. A memory study looks at why we repeat ourselves. From NYRB, Timothy Garton Ash on Velvet Revolution: The Prospects. A look at the psychedelic secrets of Santa. The FP Top 100 Global Thinkers: From the brains behind Iran's Green Revolution to the economic Cassandra who actually did have a crystal ball, they had the big ideas that shaped our world in 2009. Jonathan Littell is this year's winner of the Bad Sex in Fiction Awards (and from Bookforum, Leland de la Durantaye reviews The Kindly Ones) Why do authors find it difficult to write about sex? Peter Singer on how it's not whether we ration health care, but how. Could world finance be on the brink of cataclysmic change?: A review of The Future of the Dollar. It bleeds, and yes, it leads: In Hong Kong and Taiwan, yesterday's gruesome crime is today's digital cartoon. Cornel West's latest book is a memoir; Scott McLemee thinks it marks the end of the line. Sounding board, sage on foreign policy, twister of senatorial arms: Joe Biden could be the second-most-powerful vice president in history. Safe to say: Language indicates a shift in our thinking about sex, pain and death.
