America’s most important challengers are organized for protracted
competition. But America itself is not—yet.

America is rich in expertise and dollars, but a desperately needed infrastructure renewal depends on something else.

How the Smithsonian tried to outsource an American icon (and failed, thankfully).

Kazuo Ishiguro hangs suspended between two cultures and two languages—a tension that enriches Never Let Me Go.

How Montaigne found happiness: He helped himself.

There’s a seamy underside to children’s book author/illustrator Richard Scarry’s busy, busy world.

The flight of the best and brightest from Russia is no accident.

The benefits of nationalism, as illustrated by its absence.

Print media is under siege in France, too—but with a Gallic twist.

Jerzy Kosinski’s Being There is too biting to be funny anymore.