China’s Silver Lining
Why smoggy skies over Beijing represent the world’s greatest environmental opportunity
June 2008
In This Issue
James Fallows on the golden environmental opportunity represented by smoggy Beijing; Joshua Green on how Silicon Valley made Barack Obama this year's hottest start-up; an instructor at a "college of last resort" explains why the idea that a university education is for everyone is a destructive myth; Gregg Easterbrooks warns of the disturbingly likely possibility of an asteroid or meteor strike; Stephan Faris weighs the efficacy of climate-change litigation; Caitlin Flanagan on Barbara Walters; and much more.
Features
The Amazing Money Machine
How Silicon Valley made Barack Obama this year’s hottest start-up
HisSpace
How would Obama’s success in online campaigning translate into governing?
In the Basement of the Ivory Tower
The idea that a university education is for everyone is a destructive myth. An instructor at a “college of last resort” explains why.
The Sky Is Falling
The odds that a potentially devastating space rock will hit Earth this century may be as high as one in 10. So why isn’t NASA trying harder to prevent catastrophe? [Web only: Video: "Target Earth"]
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Redeeming Dubya
The national memory often confuses hubris with greatness. That’s good news for George W. Bush.
Calendar
Spies like us; naked biking; schismatics in Jerusalem; iPhones lose their cool
Primary Sources
Emboldening the enemy; carry more cash; socially green; GPS gets lost
Asphalt Dreams
Can better highways save Afghanistan?
The Accidental Foreign Policy
How an early gaffe and an excruciatingly long primary season helped Barack Obama find a distinctive voice on foreign affairs
Conspiracy Theory
Climate-change litigation is heating up. Will the legal strategy that brought down Big Tobacco work against Big Oil?
Books
Waste Not, Want Everything
Editor’s Choice: A panoramic new history brilliantly mixes the seismic and the everyday.
The Uses of Enchantment
Barbara Walters got the story by giving her subjects what they wanted.
Un Homme in Full
A blinkered and besotted account of Nicolas Sarkozy’s presidential campaign succumbs to the erotic entanglements of biography.
Where the Wild Things Are
The enduring, untamable appeal of Saki's short stories
Cover to Cover
A guide to additional releases: the real Jack London; Britain's favorite blood sport; Bolshevism at its birth; and more
Thai Noon
A few hours northeast of Bangkok, American-style cowboy culture thrives. [Web only: Slideshow: "Thailand's Cowboy Country"]
Cooking for a Sunday Day
At Irma’s in Houston, Mexican food is in the right hands—mothers’ and grandmothers’. [Web only: Slideshow: "Lunch With Irma"]
Word Court
Plurals at the Pentagon; identifying flying objects
