(Courtesy of Criterion Collection)
Retroview
The Radical Empathy of Do the Right Thing

More than 30 years later, Spike Lee’s classic resonates for its honest attention to interracial tensions, and its sad observation of how legitimate grievances can spiral out of control.

Purge Without Purpose
It’s Not Broke! And You’re Not Fixing It!

A former President of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and a longtime observer of America’s public diplomacy weigh in on Michael Pack’s “Wednesday night massacre.”

Bulgaria & Macedonia
The Age-Old Struggle for Narrative

In a complex, crowded world, each nation needs a way of expressing its identity that does not antagonize another. An ongoing crisis in the Balkans contains broader lessons.

Image courtesy of Shutterstock
A Wake Up Call
Geoeconomic Strategy in the COVID Era

In the wake of coronavirus and debates over “decoupling,” the United States needs a new approach to national security: one based on geoeconomics, not geopolitics.

Give and Take
The Problem with Friendship

Why is it so difficult for China and the United States to develop, find, and keep friends in the world?

political reform
Revamping U.S. Anti-Corruption Assistance

Congress could take historic action on anti-corruption. Will it seize the opportunity?

Hieronymus Bosch, “Tondal’s Vision”
North by Northwest
The Present Madness

Can whole societies go crazy? They can and have—but never before has a crazy society implicated pretty much the whole planet.

(Wikimedia Commons)
Shropshire Calling
The Poet of Social Distancing

Why the work of A.E. Housman resonates in a time of enforced isolation.

(Wikimedia Commons)
TAI Conversations
Aiding Refugees in an Age of Impunity

The CEO of the International Rescue Committee (IRC) talks with Peter Skerry and Jeffrey Gedmin about leading a humanitarian organization in a time of pandemic, how polarization affects the debate over immigrants and refugees, and why it’s wrong to view China through a Cold War lens.

(Wikimedia Commons)
Einstein in Bohemia
All Roads Lead from Prague

A new book by Michael Gordin shows how 16 months in Prague formed a young Albert Einstein—and the shape of science, politics, and intellectual history to come.

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