Summer 2009

Articles

Not Ready for Mt. Rushmore

Reconciling the myth of Ronald Reagan with the reality

by Matthew Dallek

Shock Waves

A blast in Baghdad tests the endurance of a soldier and his family

by Bethany Vaccaro

The Devil You Know

Keeping the peace in Ramadi calls for a little moral dexterity

by John B. Renehan

Blue-Collar Brilliance

Questioning assumptions about intelligence, work, and social class

by Mike Rose

Enough Already

What I'd really like to tell the bores in my life

by Mark Edmundson

Words Apart

A writer in Quebec finds that language creates an unbridgeable divide

by Witold Rybczynski

Any Way You Slice It

Sundays at the community oven aren't just about the pizza

by Rob Gurwitt

Departments

Poetry

Gary Snyder's Long View

Langdon Hammer

Four Poems

Gary Snyder

Star Picture Tipi of Black Magpie

Dolores Hayden

Point of Departure

Extralocal History

Jared Farmer

Fiction

Précautions Inutiles

Thornton Wilder

Driving to the Moon

Jill McCorkle

Commonplace Book

Hypocrisy

Anne Matthews

Book Essay

Remembering John Updike

A critic and his decades-long correspondence with one of America's best "freelance writers"

William H. Pritchard

Book Reviews

Barbarian Virtues

When Americans first yearned to transform themselves and save the world

Patricia O’Toole

Jungle Bungle

As a rubber baron, Henry Ford was no Firestone

Wayne Curtis

Gross Anatomy

A physician's inside stories about the human body

Richard McCann

The Lost Village

A Palestinian poet remembers the people and places he has lived without

Nathalie Handal

Pilgrim of Eternity

The loves and legends of Lord Byron

William Giraldi