Those who point to the dysfunction of our political institutions generally raise several distinct but interwoven phenomena. The first is the increased role of ideology in American politics. Both parties have become far fonder, if not necessarily more adept, at abstract thinking, for better or, usually, for worse. Ideological polarization between the two major parties […]

History is so long and so many events have occurred that Via Meadia rarely takes note of particular anniversaries. But October 14 is different. The Battle of Hastings was fought on this day back in 1066. King Harold of England, fresh from defeating a Viking invasion in the north, marched through the heart of England […]

Co-AI online blogger Francis Fukuyama has been hitting some out of the park lately. In a recent post he opened an important question: how do we measure bureaucratic performance?Americans love to complain about bureaucracy and rightfully so, but hating on the DMV lady isn’t the same thing as trying to figure out how government bureaucracies […]

Move over, UNICEF. Make some room, Pugwash Conference, United Nations and IPCC. American Friends Service Committee, Doctors Without Borders, and International Committee of the Red Cross, you have a new colleague. The European Union is joining the ranks of organizations awarded the world’s most sententious and self-regarding accolade, the Nobel Peace Prize.After a period in […]

Greg Scoblete at RCW takes us to task for advocating arming a faction among the Syrian militia as an advisable course of action. This is a common lament, both among pro-interventionist Western commentators and among Syrian rebel forces themselves. But how true is it? Let’s presume the U.S. arms the rebels – but only the […]

I feel that I should say something about the Middle East. After all, this blog is supposed to be mostly about religion. Here an entire region is exploding with rage in the name of religion, and what have I been writing about? About eco-ideologues flirting with an ancient goddess, and about homosexuals wanting to be […]

Speculation has touched off the biggest gold rush in history, and that gold rush is straining Peru's society and environment.

The rising prospect of Kurdish independence, with Iraqi Kurdistan as its epicenter, portends major disruptions in Southwest Asia and beyond.

American music—not just playing and listening to it, but making and selling it—is a portal to cultural awareness.

Editor’s Note: Following is the first in a series of posts analyzing the sources of American political dysfunction and proposing a programmatic response to those problems.Some months ago my colleague here at The American Interest, Walter Russell Mead, wrote a series of intellectually high-end blog posts analyzing the collapse of what he called the “blue […]