From The American Interest, John Mueller on on Terrorphobia and our false sense of insecurity. A review of Richard Rorty's New Pragmatism: Neither Liberal Nor Free by Edward Grippe. From Kritika & Kontext, an essay on Nietzsche's anti - democratic liberalism. Foreign Policy takes a look at the world’s worst religious leaders. From Sign and Sight, Tilman Nagel looks at the beginnings of Islam and the rise of Mohammed from prophet to power-conscious religious politician. Why the surge doesn’t matter: The US is still far closer to having created another failed state than a functioning democracy. A review of Betrayal: How Black Intellectuals Have Abandoned the Ideals of the Civil Rights Era by Houston A. Baker, Jr. Is America a center-right nation? Paul Waldman investigates. Olympic regret: Why China is the only world government scared of Bjork. From TLS, Raymond Tallis on the neuroscience delusion: Neuroaesthetics is wrong about our experience of literature – and it is wrong about humanity; an eighteenth-century memoir with a timeless refrain: all men are bastards; and a review of books on wife-beating in Ancient Rome. Paul Theroux claims new biography reveals the true monster in V S Naipaul. Behind door no. 1, a fatal flaw (and more on The Monty Hall Problem). An article on Hillary Clinton and the action bias, or the desire to do something rather than nothing.
