Democracy or dictatorship? Friend or foe? Russia under Vladimir Putin is all of these — and none of them.

Is Russia finished as a major power? Far from it.

A bill intended to help workers has morphed into a bureaucratic beast that endangers quality health care.

The literati scoffed at Albert Camus’ place on President Bush’s summer reading list. They misunderestimated them both.

Two books, one on law as culture and the other on Arabs, unexpectedly illuminate both subjects when read together.

Pollsters and pundits keep plumbing “why they hate us”, and keep missing the point.

Lewis Mumford had big ideas for little people.

Are Jews special, or do too many people just think they are?

Understanding how and why political institutions differ between the US and Latin America is, then, key to understanding the larger puzzle of the latter region’s lagging development.

The victory of Darfurian rebel forces over the Sudanese army in a couple of engagements last week has led to the expulsion of UN representative Jan Pronk from Khartoum for writing about it on his blog. These battles should remind us that if the conflict in Darfur is genocide, it is also quite different from […]