The World's New Numbers by Martin Walker
“Here lies Europe, overwhelmed by Muslim immigrants and emptied of native-born Europeans,” goes the standard pundit line, but neither the immigrants nor the Europeans are playing their assigned roles.

Can America Fail? by Kishore Mahbubani
A sympathetic critic issues a wake-up call for an America mired in groupthink and blind to its own shortcomings.

Last Man Standing by Tyler Cowen
It’s no cause for celebration, but the global financial crisis shows why the United States remains the indispensable nation.

Robots at War: The New Battlefield by P. W. Singer
A new way of war is on the horizon. Already, robots and drones are replacing human pilots and foot soldiers in some roles, and in the future they will take over many more. The benefits of removing human soldiers from harm’s way are obvious. But there’s a price to pay when a society can wage war by remote control.

A Fighting Chance by Alfredo Corchado
As Mexico steps up its war against the brutal cartels that supply the United States’ drug habit, leaders on both sides of the border face tough questions about how to combat a problem that threatens the very fabric of Mexico’s democracy.

McCulture by Aviya Kushner
Americans have developed an admirable fondness for books, food, and music that preprocess other cultures. But for all our enthusiasm, have we lost our taste for the truly foreign?

The Dollar's Day of Reckoning by Robert Z. Aliber
America’s financial crisis is the inevitable product of dysfunctional international financial arrangements.

The Traffic Guru by Tom Vanderbilt
An unassuming Dutch traffic engineer showed that streets without signs can be safer than roads cluttered with arrows, painted lines, and lights. Are we ready to believe him?

The Day the TV Died by Stephen Bates
In February 2009, American television will go digital, and millions of sets will fade to fuzz. It’s but the latest episode in TV’s colorful history, as the living-room set has evolved from a clunky box to a sleek rectangle on the wall.

The Right Bite by William A. Galston
There are five maxims the federal government can follow to regain the public confidence it has lost over the past four decades.

The Expeditionary Imperative by John A. Nagl
America’s national security structure is designed to confront the challenges of the last century rather than our own.

The Secret Is the System by Bruce Seely
The United States has settled for a patchwork approach to infrastructure. To stay ahead in the global economy, it needs to build adaptable networks like the 1956 Interstate Highway System.

Get Smart by Joel Garreau
Pouring more concrete will not by itself answer our infrastructure prayers. Look instead to the transformative power of information technology.

Built to Last by Alan Weisman
When our roads and bridges crumble and collapse, we have one kind of problem. When they don’t, we have another.

Only Words by Charlotte Brewer
For more than a century, the Oxford English Dictionary has dominated language lovers’ bookshelves. Now it is online, and a new edition may never see book covers again. In the digital age, will the OED remain a cultural cornerstone?

Call It Slavery by John R. Miller
The abolition of slavery was the great cause of 19th-century humanitarians. In the 21st century, argues a former U.S. ambassador at large on modern day slavery, it needs new champions.

Why Can't We Build an Affordable House? by Witold Rybczynski
One explanation of America’s housing market collapse is that too many people bought too much house. The solution: build more affordable houses. Here’s what stands in the way.

A History of the Past:
'Life Reeked With Joy' by Anders Henriksson
Possibly as an act of vengeance, a history professor--compiling, verbatim, several decades' worth of freshman papers--offers some of his students’ more striking insights into European history from the Middle Ages to the present.

Current Books
Reviews of new and noteworthy nonfiction.

Flibbertigibbets
Michael Moynihan on Bright Young People.

India'a Pilgrims
Vikram Johri on the Indian diaspora.

Made in America
Sarah L. Courteau on great Americans.

Mr. Wilson, It's Only Business
Robert Litwak on the Godfather Doctrine.

National Subject
Matthew Battles on early American art.

Oiling Our Progress
Tom Vanderbilt on the future of the auto industry.

Down With Dogma
Theo Anderson on the future of liberalism.

Whose Is Whose
Kembrew McLeod on the commons of the mind.

Educating Urban America
Thomas Toch on the new urban schools.

Evolved Tastes
John Onians on aesthetics and evolution.

Legal Limits
Alexandra Vacroux on women's legal rights.

Personal History
Gerald J. Russello on historian John Lukacs.

Preserved in Time
Andrew Curry on Pompeii.

In Essence
Our review of notable articles in other magazines and journals.

The Establishment Restored
Not since the election of JFK has America chosen a president so closely associated with the Ivy League.

Catch and Release
Stamping out piracy in the Gulf of Aden is not as simple as sending in more warships.

Breaking the Chinese Mold
Americans think the Chinese are nationalistic, authoritarian, conformist, and deferential. All of those presumptions are wrong.

Bye-Bye Books?
The 500-year-old technology of the book may be poised for assisted living, or maybe even perpetual care.

The Lullaby of Taxis
European blackbirds can give pitch-perfect renditions of urban noises, even copying the annoying sound of a golf cart backing up at a golf course.

Survival Art
A stream of archaeological discoveries is dramatically pushing back the dates of objects that were surely shaped by the hand of early man.

The Barbarous Black Skeleton
The Eiffel Tower, now the iconic symbol of Paris, was despised at first for being too American.

The Bulging Brain
The shape of the brain may be critical to the causes of such mental disorders as schizophrenia and autism.

Postmodern Pews
There's the devil to pay when a church gets stuck with a Modernist masterpiece.

A Leg Up From the Job Corps
Assessing the Job Corps, a Great Society program that works.

The Zen of Spell-Checking
To a spell-checking program, "boatman" is as good as "Obama."

History by Name
Baby names paint a remarkably revealing picture of village life in western Uganda from 1900 to 2005.

City of Niche News
Niche reporters and correspondents from overseas now dominate the Washington press corps.

He Told Us So
A look back at Daniel Patrick Moynihan's 1965 report.

Magnifying American Power
"International institutions channel the United States’ power and enhance its security," say two Dartmouth political scientists.

First Steps with Iran
There are signs of change in what one scholar calls “the poisonous domestic political climates in both Tehran and Washington.”

In Praise of Trimming
Not only is trimming pervasive, says the government's new regulatory czar, it is also honorable.

God's Speed Dial
What do you give a celebrity who has everything? A god.

The First Civil War
The American Revolution may be more accurately viewed as a series of local civil wars.