Frederick Douglass called it “a sacred effort,” and Lincoln himself thought that his Second Inaugural, which offered a theodicy of the Civil War, was better than the Gettysburg Address
Author: Garry Wills | Source: The Atlantic (September1999) | Subjects: America, Articles & Links, Excerpts, History
How “engagement” made the web a less engaging place
Author: James Somers | Source: The Atlantic (March 21, 2017) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, IT | Technology, Journalism, Life & Society
Minimum-wage jobs are physically demanding, have unpredictable schedules, and pay so meagerly that workers can’t save up enough to move on.
Author: Barbara Ehrenreich | Source: The Atlantic (January 13, 2014) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Economics | Economy, Excerpts, Life & Society, Politics & Public Policy
Perspective from the right on Trump’s political challenge for the left
Author: David Frum | Source: The Atlantic (February 6, 2017) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Politics & Public Policy, Trump
Rex Tillerson may have represented the last gasp of a certain kind of moderate Republican thinking about the world.
Author: Peter Beinart | Source: The Atlantic (March 15, 2018) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Foreign Policy, Politics & Public Policy
In my cover story in the December issue of the magazine, on how the United States should prepare for the possibility of a more truculent and repressive China, I mention the concept of the “Thucydides Trap.” The article describes the implications:
This concept was popularized by the Harvard political scientist [and my one-time professor as an undergraduate] Graham Allison. Its premise is that through the 2,500
Author: James Fallows | Source: The Atlantic (December 17, 2016) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Politics & Public Policy, Trump
Chances are, your coworkers are better at rating some parts of your personality than you are.
Author: Adam Grant | Source: The Atlantic (March 1, 2018) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior
The bills before Congress get it wrong—what’s needed is incremental reform in a conservative direction.
Author: David Frum | Source: The Atlantic (June 30, 2017) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Health & Medicine, Politics & Public Policy
To many white Trump voters, the problem wasn’t her economic stance, but the larger vision—a multi-ethnic social democracy—that it was a part of.
Author: Derek Thompson | Source: The Atlantic (December 5, 2016) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Politics & Public Policy
Conservatives are more likely to support issues like immigration and Obamacare if the message is “morally reframed” to suit their values.
Author: Olga Khazan | Source: The Atlantic (February 1, 2017) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Communication, Excerpts, Personal Improvement, Politics & Public Policy, Psychology | Behavior
Twenty years ago, Richard Rorty warned that “a spectatorial, disgusted, mocking Left” would give rise to a populist demagogue. Is it ready now to take his advice?
Author: Conor Friedersdorf | Source: The Atlantic (July 6, 2017) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Politics & Public Policy, Trump
Lines can bring fairness and order to what might otherwise be a free-for-all. There’s even a science, called queuing theory, that examines the optimal ways to make lines move equitably and efficiently. But they don’t always work that way; sometimes, they can operate to institutionalize unfairness and inequality. That’s why Arlie Russell Hochschild uses lines as a metaphor for the challenges facing contemporary American society … [ Read more ]
Author: Nitin Nohria | Source: The Atlantic (December 2, 2017) | Subjects: Excerpts, Life & Society, Politics & Public Policy, Psychology | Behavior, Sociology | Anthropology
The same part of the brain that allows us to step into the shoes of others also helps us restrain ourselves.
Author: Ed Yong | Source: The Atlantic (December 6, 2016) | Subjects: Excerpts, Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior
The American republic was long safeguarded by settled norms, now shattered by the rise of Donald Trump.
Author: David Frum | Source: The Atlantic (May 31, 2016) | Subjects: Excerpts, Politics & Public Policy, Trump
The founders envisioned electors as people who could prevent an irresponsible demagogue from taking office.
Author: Peter Beinart | Source: The Atlantic (November 21, 2016) | Subjects: Excerpts, History, Politics & Public Policy, Trump
Will General Stanley McChrystal be our deus ex machina in Afghanistan? Or just the latest commander to succumb to the impersonal forces of history and geography?
Author: Robert D. Kaplan | Source: The Atlantic (April2010) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Foreign Policy, International, Military | War | Peace
The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. One of the most alarming, says a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government—a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises. If the IMF’s staff could speak freely about the U.S., … [ Read more ]
Author: Simon Johnson | Source: The Atlantic (May2009) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Economics | Economy, Finance | Investing
For years, the secrets to great teaching have seemed more like alchemy than science, a mix of motivational mumbo jumbo and misty-eyed tales of inspiration and dedication. But for more than a decade, one organization has been tracking hundreds of thousands of kids, and looking at why some teachers can move them three grade levels ahead in a year and others can’t. Now, as the … [ Read more ]
Author: Amanda Ripley | Source: The Atlantic (January2010) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Education | Scholarship
As the president wrestles with policy decisions about Afghanistan, Iran, and elsewhere, pundits try to pigeonhole him: Is he a realist or an idealist? But the best American foreign policy has always been both, mixing moral aspiration with unsentimental prudence. Obama’s most useful model may be a predecessor who was a realist wrongly pegged as an idealist – Woodrow Wilson
Author: David M. Kennedy | Source: The Atlantic (January2010) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Foreign Policy, History, Politics & Public Policy
Is there a formula—some mix of love, work, and psychological adaptation—for a good life? For 72 years, researchers at Harvard have been examining this question, following 268 men who entered college in the late 1930s through war, career, marriage and divorce, parenthood and grandparenthood, and old age. Here, for the first time, a journalist gains access to the archive of one of the most comprehensive … [ Read more ]
Author: Joshua Wolf Shenk | Source: The Atlantic (June2009) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Psychology | Behavior