When George Meets John
A viewer's guide to this fall's version of "asymmetric warfare"— the presidential debates.
James Fallows, "When George Meets John"; Joshua Green, "Dumb and Dumber"; Mark Bowden, "Pompadour With a Monkey Wrench"; Joshua Micah Marshall, "Kerry Faces the World"; Robert D. Kaplan, "Five Days in Fallujah"; Benjamin Wittes, "Enemy Americans"; William F. Buckley, Jr., "Aweigh"; P. J. O'Rourke, "I Agree With Me"; fiction by Robert Olen Butler; and much more.
A viewer's guide to this fall's version of "asymmetric warfare"— the presidential debates.
Why are campaign commercials so bad?
Al Sharpton's goal has never been the presidency; he wants to become the leader of Black America. Problem is, that job no longer exists.
What would a John Kerry foreign policy look like? In some ways a lot like one the current President's father could endorse
Our correspondent accompanied the first unit of Marines to assault Fallujah after the murder and mutilation last April of four American civilians.
Jose Padilla and Yaser Esam Hamdi are American citizens. The Bush Administration has claimed the right to imprison them indefinitely without charge or trial, on the grounds that they are "enemy combatants" in the war on terror. Does a new kind of war require new kinds of laws?
A master and commander decides, after a lifetime on the water, that he will no longer go down to the sea
One shocking thing about the photographs is that for some people they weren't shocking
The United States is not just facing an insurgency in Iraq—it's facing "netwar," the newest kind
The UN's Lakhdar Brahimi understands that neither peace nor justice may be possible in Iraq
The world's most athletic nations
When was the last time a conservative talk show changed a mind?
Since his capture, last December, Saddam Hussein has been held by the U.S. military. He is no doubt wondering about his eventual fate, and so are others.
A report card on Iraq; why gambling is good for business; the Muslim passion for Mel Gibson; winners and losers in the modern marriage pool
Landon Carter's Uneasy Kingdom, by Rhys Isaac; Hatchet Jobs, by Dale Peck; The North American Prairie, by Stephen R. Jones and Ruth Carol Cushman; The Crow Indians, by Robert H. Lowie; War Under Heaven, by Gregory Evans Dowd; Europe's Last Summer: Who Started the Great War in 1914?, by David Fromkin; The First World War, by Hew Strachan; Cataclysm: The First World War as Political Tragedy, by David Stevenson; The Killing Ground, by Tim Travers
Teens aren't as warped as some of the books about them
Even for educated readers, Leon Trotsky survives as part kitsch and part caricature. But the reissue of a majestic biography reveals him as he always was—a prophetic moralist
Susan Sontag and Pauline Kael: a curious combination
Four Souls, by Louise Erdrich.
One of the foremost scholars of Soviet history assesses an ambitious new biography of Stalin
Updating Philon of Byzantium's famous list
The modern condition is to be overwhelmed by everything. Now comes David Allen, who can teach even you how to stop stewing and start doing
Cole Porter's real secret was not the gay life a new film biography will highlight. It was how he made his songs
"Captain," I say, "you've got about two hundred Mexican soldiers waiting for you in the plaza."
What you know if you've seen the show live...
[with audio]