Aryeh Neier's new history of the human rights movement manages to be dull, impersonal and evasive all at the same time. But when read carefully, it shows signs that the movement's old guard is growing more uncomfortable with the unfettered idealism of the rising generation of human rights activists.

While atheists and offended believers have been holding the equivalent of a dorm room bull session over the role of religion in society, evolutionary biology has emerged as a beacon of understanding. Two recent books attempt to turn that potential into reality.

We have reached linguistic gridlock, in which bipartisan dialogue has been replaced by competing efforts to manipulate voters with loaded vocabularies. Nothing will change so long as Americans remain passive consumers of these vocabularies.

American political dysfunction is both wide and deep, and the perennial, mostly GOP-hatched delusions aren't helping repair the damage.

The American political class is way behind the curve when it comes to thinking about energy and security. The supply and price of energy no longer move in lockstep, and that divergence is key to understanding our circumstances—and what to do about them.

The rhetoric and political optics of the Iran issue are anything but second-order determinants of the outcome. Senior Israeli policy-makers already know this. Why don't we?

In one of the most significant cultural finds from Elizabethan England, British archeologists have uncovered the remains of the Curtain Theater in a back alley behind a London pub. Though groundlings may not know its significance compared to the world famous Globe Theater, the Curtain was one of the first stages to showcase the work […]

A couple of weeks ago we ran a post referring to a story by the Washington Post‘s higher education reporter, Anya Kamenetz, who detailed the five worst mistakes she made as a new college grad.We also took the unusual step of soliciting reader comments – we wanted to know what advice our faithful readership would give […]

In a country where unscrupulous union bosses have colluded with cowardly politicians to promise — but not to fund — high pensions to public employees for year after year, Illinois stands out.Specifically, the Illinois Teachers Retirement Fund is one of the country’s worst funded pension funds. According to accountants — who use softer methods to […]

There’s a lot of noise coming out of Syria and the various international chat-fests being organized around it these days. Stern warnings from the State Department, charges and counter charges of massacres and atrocities on the ground in Syria, soothing platitudes from Kofi Anan, diplomatic warnings from Russia: most of it can be summarized as […]