online archive
12:00PM
JUL 5 2007
Sexual identity, philosophy and history, science and more
Cass Sunstein (Chicago): On the Tension between Sex Equality and Religious Freedom. Louis Michael Seidman (Georgetown): Gay Sex and Marriage, the Reciprocal Disadvantage Problem, and the Crisis in Liberal Constitutional Theory. Hormones affect men's sense of fair play: Next time you have to negotiate a deal with a male business contact, you might want to check his hormone levels first. A new study shows that men with high levels of testosterone are more likely to turn down low offers, even if they stand to gain money by accepting them.
From The Medieval Review, a review of The Premodern Condition: Medievalism and the Making of Theory by Bruce Holsinger. A review of Wonderful Blood: Theology and practice in late medieval Northern Germany and beyond by Caroline Walker Bynum. A review of The Good Life in the Scientific Revolution: Descartes, Pascal, Leibniz, and the Cultivation of Virtue by Matthew L. Jones.
From ReadySteadyBook, an interview with Dan Hind, author of The Threat to Reason: How the Enlightenment was hijacked and how we can reclaim it (and part 2 and part 3 and part 4).
From Metapsychology, a review of Melancholy And the Care of the Soul: Religion, Moral Philosophy and Madness in Early Modern England by Jeremy Schmidt; a review of Rousseau: The Sentiment of Existence by David Gauthier; a review of Rediscovering Empathy: Agency, Folk Psychology, and the Human Sciences by Karsten R. Stueber; a review of Hot Thought: Mechanisms and Applications of Emotional Cognition by Paul Thagard; a review of Scandalous Knowledge: Science, Truth, and the Human by Barbara Herrnstein Smith; a review of Undoing Perpetual Stress: The Missing Connection Between Depression, Anxiety and 21st Century Illness by Richard O'Connor; and a review of Why People Die by Suicide by Thomas Joiner.
From Seed, Chuck Hoberman + Lisa Randall: The inventor and the physicist meet up to talk about shape; and does the universe repeat once every trillion years? Gut instinct isn't science: If it were, the world really would be flat, wouldn't it? David P. Barash explains. From Wired, a look at how, for certain tasks, the cortex still beats the CPU. I Am Worm, Hear Me Roar: A study that connects birth order and I.Q. reminds us that the fight for self-definition starts much earlier than freshman year (and a quiz).
12:00PM
JUL 5 2007
The war on terror, imperialism and the end of the world
From Vanity Fair, The History Boys: In the twilight of his presidency, George W. Bush and his inner circle have been feeding the press with historical parallels: he is Harry Truman—unpopular, besieged, yet ultimately to be vindicated—while Iraq under Saddam was Europe held by Hitler. To a serious student of the past, that's preposterous. Writing just before his untimely death, David Halberstam asserts that Bush's "history," like his war, is based on wishful thinking, arrogance, and a total disdain for the facts.
From Commentary, the CIA's record of failure, bad enough before George Tenet, is now beyond question. Can it be repaired? From the New York Review of Books, what Tenet knew: A review of At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA by George Tenet. Did the Bushes get to George Tenet? Why did a man who seemed so bent on cashing in put off writing his memoir—at a loss of some $2 million? A review of Twice as Good: Condoleezza Rice and Her Path to Power by Marcus Mabry. A review of George Kennan: A Study of Character by John Lukacs.
From Green Left Weekly, a review of A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation, From the Cold War to the War on Terror by Alfred W. McCoy and American Torture: From the Cold War to Abu Ghraib & Beyond by Michael Otterman. A review of Five Years of My Life: A Report from Guantanamo by Murat Kurnaz. Judea Pearl on a call for moral clarity: " Moral relativism died with my son, Daniel Pearl. A Mighty Heart is a reminder of immutable distinctions".
An essay on The Evolution and Importance of Army/Marine Corps Field Manual 3-24, Counterinsurgency; and Paradoxes of Counterinsurgency Operations: An excerpt from The U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual.
Imperial Washington: Cullen Murphy, author of Are We Rome?, takes in the sights and similarities (and an interview). Ian Buruma on Embracing the Empire. An op-ed on How a Revolution Saved an Empire. A review of Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic by Chalmers Johnson.
A review of Have a nice doomsday: why millions of Americans are looking forward to the end of the world by Nicholas Guyatt. What would the world be like if there were no humans here? A review of The World Without Us by Alan Weisman.
12:00PM
JUL 5 2007
Global issues, American foreign policy, American democracy and more
From Conversations With History, an interview with Nayan Chanda, author of Bound Together: How Traders, Preachers, Adventurers, and Warriors Shaped Globalization. A review of Buda's Wagon: A brief history of the car bomb by Mike Davis. The Palestinian conflict may not meet David Singer's threshold of what constitutes a civil war, but it does speak to an important conclusion about war in general: In contrast to the last two centuries, intrastate conflicts nowadays are far more likely to be internationalized.
From Foreign Policy, is it too late for America to win back its disappointed admirers? Not if the United States returns to its founding ideals and finally puts to bed the myth of “American exceptionalism” once and for all, says Anne-Marie Slaughter; and where's the love? Each year, the United States seems to slide ever lower in the world’s esteem. But not everyone hates America. Hidden inside a new 47-nation Pew Global Attitudes Survey are some surprising oases of support for the world’s sole superpower.
George III or George W? As Americans celebrate independence on the Fourth of July, some of them must be wondering if it was all a mistake. The answer: join Canada. La Résistance is Futile: This Independence Day, Radar pays tribute to revolutions that flopped. Michael Hardt on taking the revolutionary road: The US has been the world's principal anti-revolutionary force for almost a century. As Thomas Jefferson would have said, it's time to rebel. Subverting democracy: Pious words about promoting democracy in the Middle East are belied by the long history of US machinations, argues Joseph Massad.
An excerpt from The Rise of the Unelected: Democracy and the New Separation of Powers by Frank Vibert. Tote that vote: Political betting offers opportunities for both electoral hanky-panky and easy money. Voter suppression in America may have affected our last five federal elections. The voter suppression efforts uncovered so far have been aimed at suppressing minority votes or those who traditionally vote for Democratic political candidates. Was campaigning against voter fraud a Republican ploy? Jack Beatty on A Sisyphean History of Campaign Finance Reform: A look at how we ended up back where we began. The Center Shouldn’t Hold: The citizens of Belle Fourche, S.D., would be well advised to make the new geographical center of the United States transportable.
The Man-Crush Primary: Why are so many pundits enamored of the Republican candidates' manliness — and so eager to equate "presidential" with "masculine"? Mike Gravel, who brought avant-garde campaign ads to YouTube, is to political advertising what 50 Cent is to bullet wounds. The Heisenberg primaries: Candidates and media beware: you can't measure what hasn't happened.
12:00PM
JUL 5 2007
Literature, literary criticism, Guernica, cinema and more
Pierre Wiktorin (Lund): Constructing a Distinct Other: Harry Potter and the Enchantment of the Future. From New English Review, Ibn Warraq on Jane Austen and slavery. Summer Reading: Should you read the best-selling memoir Eat, Pray, Love?
From Eurozine, the re-transnationalization of literary criticism: Critical and public discussion of foreign literature in newspapers and magazines has traditionally served as a source of information and guidance not only for a broad readership, but also for "people in the business", for publishers and authors. When that discussion disappears, or loses its perspectives and becomes one-sided, this has consequences for the literary institution as a whole.
From TLS, a review of Guernica and Total War; La Guerra Civil en Euzkadi: testimonios inéditos recogidos por José Miguel de Barandarian; De Gernika a Guernica: Volume 1: Guernica, Volume 2: Marcas, Volume 3: Picasso's "Guernica"; Only for Three Months: The Basque refugee children in exile; and Recuerdos. A review of An Anthology of Jewish-Russian Literature: Two Centuries of Dual Identity in Prose and Poetry.
From NPQ, The New Global Cinema: An interview with Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu on how Hollywood must portray the point of view of others; and Nathan Gardels and Mike Medavoy on shock and awe vs. hearts and minds at the movies.
From Print, Buildings and People: Marketers are shaping the luxury-condo craze with high-concept campaigns. Welcome to the branded life; and Shadow Boxer: All James Harvey wanted was to make fine art. Thanks to Andy Warhol, he did—anonymously. The Art of the Politics of Art: "How much, if any, public money should be spent on the arts?" — the answer to which depends on the answer to the basic question, "Who says what is and what is not art?"
The Kingdom and the Tower: On Thursday, June 21, The New York Times spent its last day at 229 West 43rd Street. Gay Talese, the Times’ greatest chronicler and a former reporter there, returned to the gothic newspaper castle that housed Sulzbergers, Adolph S. Ochs’ ten-foot grandfather clock, thousands of journalists, massive underground presses that still ooze ink and defined an era in journalism.
Rare Books. Rare Brothers. Rare Chance to Profit. Closed: For weeks people have been coming into the Heritage Book Shop in West Hollywood in tears, saddened by the seemingly sudden decision of Louis and Benjamin Weinstein to close their antiquarian book business.
