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The direct and selfish exploitation of a feudal era has been transformed in the modern age into a juridically constrained and almost disinterested state kleptocracy. Today, a finance minister is…

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But at what? Magee’s landing on the stone floor of that French train station was softened by the skylight he crashed through a moment earlier. Glass hurts, but it gives.…

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An example of how insidious policies can create insidious habits implying insidious ideas is found President Obama’s first speech before Congress. In it he echoed ideas he often advocated in…

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Mark Schapiro on Fresh Air, talking about… fresh air (or more specifically, the carbon-trade economy (see his article in this month’s Harper’s [subs]) It didn’t take long. Cunningham had canceled…

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The genocide of the Rwandan Tutsis, Gourevitch claims, was “the product of order, authoritarianism, decades of modern political theorizing and indoctrination, and of one of the most meticulously administered states…

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Today, prosecutors tried to introduce a document from actress, Mia Farrow, alleging that supermodel Naomi Campbell had informed her that Mr. Taylor had sent his men to give her a…

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Haiti is everybody’s cherished tragedy. Long before the great earthquake struck the country like a vengeful god, the outside world, and Americans especially, described, defined, marked Haiti most of all…

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The man has tried, of course; we’ve gotten patches of narrative around all the important issues—the economy, the war in Afghanistan, the war on terror (a.k.a. the Undiebomber)—but I’ve yet…

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VIC CHESNUTT: Wow. I have been amazed and confused by the health care debate. We need health care reform. There is no doubt about it, we really need health care…

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I visited Durkee in November, hoping to see the new $20 million mercury control system, reportedly in the initial phases of construction. But my request for a tour was denied.…

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Immediately upon leaving our position, we came under heavy enemy fire. Almost at once, Private Ames grew red in the face. Private Elder took Ames’s pack. But the pack was…

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For once, it seems that journalists are bristling on behalf of Haiti, a place usually painted by wariness and fear and resigned pity. Haitians themselves may be getting something like…

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It was Hefner’s great insight that girly pictures divorced from any kind of human individuality could not be anything except dirty. And so his Playmates had names, jobs, personalities, and…

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You also don’t care when they say that you glorify political violence. For me, the 20th century communism is the biggest ethical-political catastrophe in history, greater catastrophe than fascism. But…

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Is there anyone out there who still expects anything from the Angelides Commission? After AIG? After TARP? After Treasury’s gargantuan tax breaks for banks, Geithner’s preposterous asset buying program, the…

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It was at this point that I decided to kill him. After all, would the world really miss this fatuous little suppository, with his preening self-confidence and emetic cuteness? At…

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Filmic and most photographic images of war are shorn of the heart-pounding fear, awful stench, deafening noise and exhaustion of the battlefield. Such images turn confusion and chaos, the chief…

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While Palin enjoys support from some prominent Jewish conservatives, it is not an exaggeration to say that, more so than any other major political figure in recent memory (with the…

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A couple of years ago, Iraqi oil production was declining and it didn’t seem too likely the country would stabilize any time soon to allow that to change. However, the…

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In Narang’s office, the shades are drawn, the better to read a large monitor on one wall. There are no tickers scrolling by, no flashing updates on the value of…

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Judging precisely what kind of book on the Jews Céline produced would not seem to demand great deliberation: the “anti-Semitic stance” he mentioned in his “astonishing” letter to Cillie is…

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I suffer from a motor neuron disorder, in my case a variant of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS): Lou Gehrig’s disease. Motor neuron disorders are far from rare: Parkinson’s disease, multiple…

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In New York, many natives fretted about a “Jewish crime wave” that was supposedly plaguing the city during these decades. Young Jews in disturbing numbers, it was said, had joined…

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The far-left Velvet Revolution has put a $200,000 bounty on the head of Chamber of Commerce CEO Tom Donohoe… Mr. Donohoe’s alleged crime– his outspoken opposition to government run health…

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Improbably, however, a number of foreigners did continue to make the trip. Some wanted to witness the war firsthand. Others, such as a visitor from suburban St. Louis, just “wanted…

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The lines most cited in Barack Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize speech were those about evil: “Evil does exist in the world. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler’s armies.…

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Bernard DeVoto on the Sad State of Paring Knives (as featured in Julie & Julia) From “The Paring Knife at the Crossroads,” by Bernard DeVoto in the April 1939 Harper’s…

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Observers of financial services saw unbelievable prosperity and apparently immense value added. Yet two years later the whole industry was bankrupt. A simple reason underlies this: any industry that pays…

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