archive

Nuts to be a genius

From The New Yorker, Philip Gourevitch on interrogating torture: How to account for the past; Malcolm Gladwell on how David beats Goliath: When underdogs break the rules; and James Surowiecki on how banks got big. An interview of Liaquat Ahamed, author of Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World. Russell Shorto on how an American in Holland learned to love the European welfare state. Francis Fukuyama reviews The Challenge for Africa by Wangari Maathai and Dead Aid by Dambisa Moyo. A review of Emily Post: Daughter of the Gilded Age, Mistress of American Manners by Laura Claridge. A review of Superstition: Belief in the Age of Science by Robert L. Park. Here are 7 (crazy) civilian uses for nuclear bombs. The first chapter from Prison Religion: Faith-Based Reform and the Constitution by Winnifred Fallers Sullivan. Conflating history with theology: Raymond Ibrahim on Judeo-Christian violence vs. Islamic violence. Do you have to be nuts to be a genius? John McWhorter takes a look at real diversity. David Gordon reviews The Case for Big Government by Jeff Madrick. More and more on Rick Perlstein's Nixonland (and an excerpt at Bookforum). From The Wall Street Journal, an interview with Desiree Rogers, the former Mardi Gras queen who holds the keys to Brand Obama.