Volume 302 No. 3 | October 2008
Articles with headlines in gray are unavailable online.
John McCain believes the Vietnam War was winnable. Now he argues that an Obama administration would accept defeat in Iraq, with grave costs to American honor and national security. Is McCain’s quest for victory a reflection of an antiquated pre-Vietnam mind-set? Or of a commitment to principles we abandon at our peril? Is there any war McCain thinks can’t be won?
by Jeffrey Goldberg
Two idealistic Taiwanese businessmen happened into the most rural part of China and thought: Let’s bring it from the 15th century to the 21st. [Web-only: Slideshow: China's Wild West narrated by James Fallows]
by James Fallows
HUMOR
Casanova’s first orgasm, Hitler’s famous mustache, Bob Hope’s last jokes: for every thing, there is a season. Herewith a compilation of great moments in precocity, endurance, and procrastination, organized instructively by age
by Eric Hanson
How the greatest game in football history looks 50 years later, through the eyes of a modern NFL head coach
by Mark Bowden
Web-only
INTERVIEWS
Mark Bowden discusses the legendary Giants-Colts game of 1958 and reflects on how the sport and its players have changed in the past half century.
by Timothy Lavin
It may be closer than you think.
by Ross Douthat
Web-only
INTERVIEWS
Ross Douthat discusses pornography, prostitution, the pixel-versus-flesh binary, and the strange moral dynamics of a national addiction.
by Jennie Rothenberg Gritz
An Atlantic chronicle of the campaign so far, with commentary by Joshua Green, Marc Ambinder, Ross Douthat, Matthew Yglesias, and others.
Web-only
FROM THE ARCHIVES
Writings from 1860 to the present on campaigns, candidates, and presidential elections, with contributions by James Russell Lowell, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., P.J. O'Rourke, and others.
COMMENT
Iraq-style counterinsurgency is fast becoming the U.S. Army’s organizing principle. Is our military preparing to fight the next war, or the last one?
by Andrew J. Bacevich
What to watch for in the weeks ahead
by Matthew Quirk
Why we love celebrities; sleepless soldiers; Pakistan's policing problems
THE NATION IN NUMBERS
Is wind the new ethanol?
by Matthew Quirk
REPORT
Can Republicans find a way to compete on the Web?
by Reihan Salam
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Prosecuting the war in Afghanistan from provincial capitals has been disastrous; we need to turn our military strategy inside out.
by Thomas H. Johnson and M. Chris Mason
Editor’s Choice: The new “white people” are bigoted, but not the way you think—or they’ll admit.
by Benjamin Schwarz
Unlike most modern museum directors, Philippe de Montebello trusted the public to embrace his high standards—and it did.
by Jed Perl
The narrator of Roth’s Indignation may die off early and horribly—but it’s the reader of this adolescent work who ought to feel the most outraged.
by Christopher Hitchens
A guide to additional releases
FOOD
When bakers break up, who gets custody of the recipes?
by Corby Kummer
Web-only
THE PUZZLER
by Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon
