Summer 2010

Articles

What the Earth Knows

Understanding the concept of geologic time and some basic science can give a new perspective on climate change and the energy future

by Robert B. Laughlin

All Style, No Substance

What’s wrong with the State Department’s public diplomacy effort

by Amitai Etzioni

Too Bad Not to Fail

Just what are derivatives, and how much more damage can they do?

by William J. Quirk

Voices of a Nation

In the 19th century, American writers struggled to discover who they were and who we are

by Brenda Wineapple

Hive of Nerves

To be alive spiritually is to feel the ultimate anxiety of existence within the trivial anxieties of everyday life

by Christian Wiman

The Bearable Lightness of Being

If you live long enough and contentedly enough in exile, your feelings of estrangement can evolve into a sense of living two lives at once

by Ewa Hryniewicz-Yarbrough

Departments

Book Reviews

Reducing Science and Religion

The world remains infinitely more complex than contemporary attempts to account for it

Ingrid Rowland

Maker of Magazines

Henry Luce had a restless mind and a preternatural feel for the national pulse

Stanley Cloud

Growing Up in a Troubled Neighborhood

Kai Bird’s Middle East Memories and Meditations

James Gibney

An Assassin's Tale

In the footsteps of the murderer of Martin Luther King Jr.

Sridhar Pappu

Do Head Meds Make Us Sicker?

The argument that says they do has problems of its own

Gary Greenberg

Mayhem Across the Border

A Mexican city where homicide is the new normal

Paul Salopek

A Joyless Noise

Two pleas for making life a whole lot quieter

Jon Zobenica