From The New Yorker, like men betrayed: James Wood revisits Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates (and more by Christopher Hitchens; and more from Slate; and more from TNR; and more from Bookforum). From Ceasefire, an interview with Michael Albert on the death of capitalism; an interview with Norman Finkelstein: "The left is not a political force in American life"; articles on radicalism for beginners and remembering 1968; Jeremy Bates on the struggle for academic freedom; and should we regulate political research? Murray Goulden wonders. We must add another field to the list of those in need of rescuing — economics itself. All work and no play still might not get Jack into Harvard: High-school seniors are more stressed out than ever — just like the rest of us. Is it true that comic books are now turning partisan? The Great Boob Bust: Maura Moynihan on why a smaller cup size is good for America; and an article on Iran's hottest porn video, a hidden camera that catches an Iranian cleric committing adultery. At one point in his life, he did very good technical work in general relativity, but Frank Tipler is a crackpot. The hundred years' war: How growing rejectionism, the rise of religion, a new military doctrine and a new cold war keep peace at bay. Web 2.0 is so over; welcome to Web 3.0: Facebook and Twitter may be more popular than ever among users, but what are they worth?
Brad DeLong (UC-Berkeley): What Has Happened to Milton Friedman's Chicago School? From Eurozine, Jens-Martin Eriksen and Frederik Stjernfelt on Culturalism: Culture as political ideology. Peter Augustine Lawler on 1968 in context: Scarcity and decade analysis. Damon Linker on the two Richard John Neuhauses (and more and more). From Discover, did humans colonize the world by boat? (and more) Why David Halberstam’s The Best and the Brightest should serve as a cautionary tale as Obama reconsiders the Iraq war — and Iran. Whatever happened to preemption? Max Boot on the Bush Doctrine after Bush. The worst is yet to come: Five economists whose prophetic warnings went unheeded preview the next stage of the global financial crisis. Some commentators are finding a tempting comparison between the Madoff scandal and the Social Security system — here's why it's wrong. From Gelf, an interview with George Kimball, author of Four Kings: Leonard, Hagler, Hearns, Durán and the Last Great Era of Boxing; and an interview with John Capouya, author of Gorgeous George: The Outrageous Bad-Boy Wrestler Who Created American Pop Culture. Step aside, Sartre, this is the new face of French intellectualism: While the West threw billions at global poverty, Esther Duflo tried to solve the problem with science — it has made her France's most feted thinker.
From The Wilson Quarterly, the US has settled for a patchwork approach to infrastructure — to stay ahead in the global economy, it needs to build adaptable networks like the 1956 Interstate Highway System; pouring more concrete will not by itself answer our infrastructure prayers — look instead to the transformative power of information technology; and when our roads and bridges crumble and collapse, we have one kind of problem — when they don’t, we have another. From McSweeney's, Jason Roeder on The Elements of Spam. Does going to Mecca make Muslims more moderate? Here's Nat Hentoff's last column: The 50-year veteran says goodbye (as The Village Voice is written off). What Crisis? Some promising futures for art criticism. From Vanity Fair, when Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa on novelist Salman Rushdie for The Satanic Verses, it was the opening shot in a war on cultural freedom — two decades later, the violence continues, and Muslim fundamentalists have gained a new advantage: media self-censorship; and Dubya, drawn and quartered: A slide show features favorite depictions of the soon-to-be-former president. There's a lot of talk about using tolls to shift people from roads onto public transportation, but how about taking the toll off transit? Gawker Shocker: How the Web's hottest gossip empire lost its mojo. More and more on Snark by David Denby.
The latest issue of Moment is out. From The Nation, a review of George, Being George: George Plimpton’s Life as Told, Admired, Deplored, and Envied by 200 Friends, Relatives, Lovers, Acquaintances, Rivals — and a Few Unappreciative Observers) by Nelson W. Aldrich Jr. A review of books on the history of the Panama Canal. From The Daily Beast, an article on 20 forgotten Bush scandals; and roll over, Gutenberg! Publishing legend Jason Epstein says the only way to save the book industry is to get rid of all the books. Do you suffer from blogaholism, Twitteritis, RSS Dependency, or Status Update Disorder? Then this is the seminar for you. Look closely: Do you see the onset of another Great Depression? Maybe it's all in your mind. Martin Feldstein might never win the Nobel for economics, but he may be the most influential economist of his generation. Soother in Chief: How Barack Obama calms a panicked nation. M K Bhadrakumar on Obama, soccer and South Asian security. The limits to my self-importance: An interview with David Frum. In the first index of its kind, Foreign Policy ranks the world’s best think tanks. How to live what Michael Pollan preaches: A review of Mark Bittman's Food Matters. A review of America: Empire of Liberty by David Reynolds. The City Where the Sirens Never Sleep: Detroit is dying, but, it is not dead yet.