After the September 11 attacks, the United States began a sweeping restructuring of the nation’s intelligence-gathering and coercive institutions. The administration had two goals: first, to enhance information sharing and analysis among all U.S. military, intelligence, and law enforcement agencies. …
Global Woman : Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy, edited by Arlie Russell Hochschild and Barbara Ehrenreich
“Perhaps I am confusing Joschka Fischer and Jürgen Habermas,” admitted then French interior minister Jean-Pierre Chevènement in a debate on Europe with Fischer in the summer of 2000. Not surprisingly, this “confusion” flattered the German foreign minister. After all, during …
The most frequently consulted section of every guidebook is that on tipping. Habits and customs vary from one country to another. Travelers usually try to adapt to local customs; the failure to adapt is often a cause for embarrassment. It …
One of the greater oddities of British politics this winter has been the Labour Party’s travails over higher education. The government issued its White Paper on Higher Education in January 2003-“White Papers” are arcane BritSpeak for the publications in which …
If you’re an American who didn’t support the war in Iraq, what have been your choices since “major combat operations” ended in April 2003? Call for withdrawing U.S. troops, leaving the Iraqis to cope with the colossal and tragic mess …
Joan Didion’s Where I Was From and Colson Whitehead’s The Colossus of New York: A City in Thirteen Parts
Monitoring Daily Life
As someone who worked on Ralph Nader’s 2000 campaign staff, I’ve grown tired of the question, “What are you ‘progressives’ gonna do in 2004?” Coming from party-line Democrats, it sounds more like a threat than an inquiry. And Ralph’s true …
Every work of history, according to Howard Zinn, is a political document. He titled his thick survey A People’s History so that no potential reader would wonder about his own point of view: “With all its limitations, it is a history …
Hucksters in the White House
A classic book of social psychology analyzes a flying saucer cult of the 1950s. This small band of Americans believed that on a particular date soon to come, the world would be engulfed by a flood of biblical proportions-but also …
Norberto Bobbio died in January 2004 at the age of ninety-four in Turin, the city in which he was born and spent most of his life. Over the years, his home had become a haven for intellectuals, political leaders, and …
After the Empire: The Breakdown of the American Order by Emmanuel Todd and Socialist register 2004: The New Imperial Challenge
An interview with Adam Michnik
