Political leadership

A Peculiar Virtue

by Gerald W. (Gerald White) Johnson,

Only once have we elected a really ignorant man to the Presidency. Andrew Jackson was almost completely innocent of book-learning when he came to the White House. Furthermore, he was…

Team America

by Thomas Frank,

There have been an estimated 16,000 books written about Abraham Lincoln; like the lives of the wealthy and the secrets of self-improvement, a fascination with the Great Emancipator is an…

Barack Hoover Obama

by Kevin Baker,

The best and the brightest blow it again

Obamandela

by Breyten Breytenbach,

From a lecture delivered in January at the Gorée Institute, in Senegal. Breytenbach’s essay “Mandela’s Smile” appeared in the December 2008 issue of Harper’s Magazine. First it was the voice. It…