The Coming Revolution in Africa

Moving: A Great American Tradition

– Christopher Clausen

Whether in covered wagons or station wagons, Americans have always hit the road, driven by the belief that a better life lies over the hill and around the bend.

The Brain: A Mindless Obsession

– Charles Barber

Despite stunning advances in neuroscience and bold claims of revelations from new brain-scan technologies, our knowledge about the brain’s role in human behavior is still primitive.

How Freud Conquered America, Then Lost It

– Charles Barber

Bizarrely, it was World War II that brought psychiatry, and more specifically, psychoanalysis, into the mainstream of American culture.

The Micromagic of Microcredit

– Karol Boudreaux and Tyler Cowen

It’s wishful thinking to believe that tiny loans to people in developing countries can end poverty, but microcredit does improve the lives of millions in small but meaningful ways.

Ordeal in Iran: An Interview with Haleh Esfandiari

– Haleh Esfandiari and Judith M. Havemann

On December 30, 2006, Haleh Esfandiari, director of the Wilson Center’s Middle East Program, was stopped and robbed on her way to the Tehran airport.Trapped in Iran without a passport, she was interrogated by intelligence agents almost daily for six weeks and was then placed in solitary confinement.

East Egg Moves West

– The Wilson Quarterly

Sociologists have explored virtually every aspect of the poor and middle class, but they are finally beginning to study the enclaves of the rich.

New York, Immigration 101

– The Wilson Quarterly

New Yorkers pride themselves on a tradition of successfully absorbing immigrants, even if the story is not always quite true.

Time for Plan B

– The Wilson Quarterly

Since the end of the Cold War, the foreign policy establishment has stood solidly behind international activism. It's time to admit the experiment has failed.

Safer Than ‘Nam

– The Wilson Quarterly

The new kind of war being fought in Iraq has resulted in much lower troop deaths compared to earlier conflicts, but woundings are still alarmingly high.

Geezers on the Court

– The Wilson Quarterly

Supreme Court justices used to serve shorter terms, either because of death or semi-graceful retirement. Now the average tenure surpasses a quarter-century, and many think term limits are in order.

Chinese Chardonnay?

– The Wilson Quarterly

Winemaking is the latest industry to witness global production, with no end in sight.

Stay Inside the Box

– The Wilson Quarterly

Managers are always encouraging workers to "think outside the box," but studies suggest that most people are not very good at unstructured, abstract brainstorming.

The False Promise of Curbside Recycling

– The Wilson Quarterly

Cities that launch expensive curbside recycling programs, as opposed to having residents bring their recyclables to a regional center, get little extra for their money.

Debunking the Stereotype: Not so High in Vietnam

– The Wilson Quarterly

The American public bought into a sensationalized media portrait of addicted Vietnam soldiers. Alcohol was more of a problem, but the stereotype persists.

The Limits of Liberal Islam

– The Wilson Quarterly

Westerners think that separation of church and state is a natural condition, but it isn't. Thomas Hobbes provided an exhausted Europe with a secular solution, but Muslims experienced nothing similar among their thinkers.

What’s Actually Happening to the Snows of Kilimanjaro?

– The Wilson Quarterly

The shrinking glacier on Tanzania's Mount Kilimanjaro are, for many, including Al Gore, a prime example of global warming. But scientific study shows the truth is much more complex.

How “Frankenstein” Came to Life

– The Wilson Quarterly

How could 18-year-old Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley have concocted a horror tale for the ages? Many now think she had a very good editor: her husband.

A Pox Upon Brooklyn?

– The Wilson Quarterly

A critic has uncovered a warm, fuzzy strain infecting modern literature. It seems centered in Brooklyn.

Postcommunist Shuffle

– The Wilson Quarterly

The Rose, Orange, and Tulip revolutions in three former Soviet Republics, says a political scientist, have amounted to little more than a limited rotation of the ruling elites.

The Checkers Terminator

– The Wilson Quarterly

Think you can beat a computer at checkers? Better think again.

The Downside of Diversity

– The Wilson Quarterly

Although it is alluring to think that living in diverse communities fosters tolerance and social solidarity, Harvard sociologist Robert D. Putnam, of “Bowling Alone” fame, says the evidence points overwhelmingly in the opposite direction.

The Religious Shall Multiply

– The Wilson Quarterly

Culture and economics tend to encourage low population growth. These days, the only people still having lots of babies seem to be the deeply religious.

Uppity Abigail

– The Wilson Quarterly

First Lady Abigail Adams was a shrewd speculator who pressed and wheedled her husband, John, to get out of farmland and invest in bonds.

What it means to be “clean,” and how that’s changed over time

– Winifred Gallagher

“Cleanliness is next to godliness” doesn’t mean what you think it does.

Everybody’s business: Why it’s so hard to keep secrets nowadays

– Gary Alan Fine

The Inter­net has created a reputational economy as well as an electronic one.

Literary Companions

– Brooke Allen

Reviewing Janet Malcolm's book on Gertrude Stein and her long-time companion Alice B. Toklas, in which Malcolm comes close to declaring Stein an artistic fraud.

The Mortal Nation

– Robert Wilson

In a new book on the American Civil War, reviewer Robert Wilson finds it was “the shared suffering” of the North and South that “finally made the nation one again.”

Lost and Found

– Rebecca Clay

A new biography of explorer Henry Morton Stanley uncovers "the truth behind the myth," and "paints a sympathetic portrait of the ultimate self-made man."

The Vice Squad

– Amy E. Schwartz

Amy E. Schwartz looks at “Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History.”

Vanity Projects

– Aaron Mesh

“Politicians, ugly buildings, and whores all get respectable if they last long enough,” says a character in the film classic Chinatown. Reviewer Aaron Mesh concludes that movies have been around long enough to join the list.

An Artist’s Intuition

– Anthony Aveni

A young writer's book about the scientific clairvoyance of artists every bit as insightful as the ideas of his subjects.

Poverty is not the root cause of Islamist terrorism

– Walter Reich

“As a group,” Krueger notes, “terrorists are better educated and from wealthier families than the typical person in the same age group of the societies from which they originate.”

The Melting Pot of Queens

– Mimi Schwartz

Mimi Schwartz reviews a new guide to Queens, the largest of the city’s five boroughs and the second most populous (after Brooklyn). The book's author calls it “the most heterogeneous place in the world.”

Why God Won't Die

– Jay Tolson

Jay Tolson reviews a new book by Charles Taylor, "a profoundly learned thinker (who is also a believing Christian)" that tries to explain the persistence of religion in a secular world.

A Day In the Life of a Human Body

– Sharman Apt Russell

A new book examines a day in the life of the body, and reviewer Sharman Apt Russell appreciates its many "intriguing byways—orgasms, napping, the common cold, and nightmares."

How numbers rule our lives

– Alexandra Vacroux

Trying to come to grips with the myriad ways that numbers rule our lives, and to understand that some thinking is better done by human than computer.

Why billions in aid to Pakistan haven’t improved the lives of poor Pakistanis

– Samia Altaf

A surreal encounter in an Islamabad office reveals in an instant why billions of dollars spent on aid to Pakistan have made so little difference in the lives of the country’s poor.