| JANUARY 2012 |

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THE CHARACTER OF RUSSIA

BY DAVID SATTER

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ALAA AL ASWANY'S "ON THE STATE OF EGYPT", A YEAR AFTER THE REVOLUTION

BY MAURICE CHAMMAH

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ISLAM AND DEMOCRACY

BY HAMID ELYASSI

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THE STOICS AND THE EPICUREANS ON FRIENDSHIP, SEX, AND LOVE

BY RICHARD KREITNER

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TOWARD A NEW NARRATIVE NONFICTION

BY JOHN PAHLE

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CENTRAL ASIA FREQUENT FLIER

BY DAVID MOULD

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(MIS)NAMING THE REVOLUTION

BY MELISSA T. MYAMBO

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CAPITALISM AND CRISIS

BY JAMES FULCHER

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CORPORATIONS AND DEMOCRACY

BY COLIN CROUCH

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GUSTAV KLIMT: THE UNIVERSE IN A KISS

BY STEPHANIE ANN HARPER

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ON BEING SINGULAR

BY GERALD L. BRUNS

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A CAPTIVE AUDIENCE

BY MARK DWORTZAN

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THE LAST SUPERSTITION

BY EDWARD FESER

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E.P.TAYLOR AND HOW MONOPOLY TOOK OVER A SPORT

BY RODNEY DUBEY

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A COOPERATIVE SPECIES

BY SAMUEL BOWLES AND HERBERT GINTIS

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PORTRAITS AND PERSONS

BY CYNTHIA FREELAND

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THE SCIENCE OF EVIL

BY SIMON BARON-COHEN

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WHY PEOPLE BECOME POOR

BY ANIRUDH KRISHNA

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THE INSTITUTIONAL REVOLUTION

BY DOUGLAS W. ALLEN

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THE LAST UTOPIA: HUMAN RIGHTS IN HISTORY

BY SAMUEL MOYN

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WHEN NEWS FOCUSES ON THOSE ABOUT TO DIE

BY BARBIE ZELIZER

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DEPTH: THE SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATION

BY MICHAEL STREVENS

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COCO CHANEL: A BIOGRAPHY

BY LINDA SIMON

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THE MANUSCRIPT THAT MUST BE SAVED

BY BESTE ALPAY

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A BOOK FORGED IN HELL

BY STEVEN NADLER

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FREEDOM AND THE LAWS OF NATURE

BY STEVEN HORST

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PSYCHOLOGY AND CATHOLICISM

BY ROBERT KUGELMANN

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DOES SCIENCE CONTRADICT RELIGION?

BY ALVIN PLANTINGA

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THE PROTESTANT ETHIC AND THE SPIRIT OF CAPITALISM

BY RICHARD SWEDBERG

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DIGNITY: THE ROLE IT PLAYS IN CONFLICT

BY DONNA HICKS

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THE CRISIS OF CAPITALIST DEMOCRACY

BY RICHARD A. POSNER

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ON THE ORIGIN OF STORIES

BY BRIAN BOYD

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PAST ISSUES (2011)

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THE MODEL IN THE MIRROR OF ART

BY WENDY STEINER

Any creation story is a story about models, for as King Lear reminds us, "Nothing can come of nothing." Models generate entities "made in their own image." They are the Real peeking out at us from the mirror of art... | read |

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THE FRUIT, THE TREE, AND THE SERPENT

BY LYNNE A. ISBELL

I still find it amazing that my dog's eyesight is so poor. The other day he confused another man standing perhaps three meters away, with my husband... | read |

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BETWEEN SENSE AND DE KOONING

BY RICHARD SHIFF

Even as he became a celebrity in the world of art, Willem de Kooning took pride in remaining an ordinary man, living (he liked to say) as he had when he was unknown and poor. He resisted the aesthetic and intellectual fashions of his era... | read |

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ON ART AND WAR AND TERROR

BY ALEX DANCHEV

'Poetry makes nothing happen,' said the poet W. H. Auden. How wrong he was... | read |

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PSYCHOLOGY AND CATHOLICISM

BY ROBERT KUGELMANN

Relationships between sciences and religions are a thorny issue in our day. All too often, dogmatic statements proclaim animosity between them, as when atheist thinkers condemn religion in the name of science, or when fundamentalist Christians usurp scientific authority by reference to the Book of Genesis...| read |

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MINDREADING ANIMALS

BY ROBERT W. LURZ

The Debate over What Animals Know about Other Minds | read |

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THE POVERTY OF CLIO

BY FRANCESCO BOLDIZZONI

In his presidential address to the American Historical Association earlier this year, Anthony Grafton has warned the profession that history is "under attack"... | read |

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CONSERVATISM

BY KIERON O'HARA

Defining conservatism is surprisingly hard; well, perhaps not that surprising, since self-described conservatives have adopted many apparently incompatible positions in recent years. Hayek advocated small government, but Reagan and Bush increased its size. The religious right and extreme libertarians claim the term... | read |

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BRAINTRUST: WHAT NEUROSCIENCE TELLS US ABOUT MORALITY

BY PATRICIA SMITH CHURCHLAND

Self-preservation is embodied in our brain's circuitry: we seek food when hungry, warmth when cold, and sex when lusty. In the evolution of the mammalian brain, circuitry for regulating one's own survival and well-being was modified... | read |

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THE INVENTION OF MARKET FREEDOM

BY ERIC MACGILVRAY

Through most of human history the word "freedom" has been used to distinguish the members of a social and political elite from those classes of people - women, slaves, serfs, menial laborers, and foreigners - who do not enjoy their privileges or... | read |

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RETURNING DIGNITY TO ECONOMICS

BY MARK D. WHITE

A Review of Kantian Ethics and Economics: Autonomy, Dignity, and Character. | read |

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WHY WE COOPERATE

BY MICHAEL TOMASELLO

As we read the newspaper each day, most of us ask ourselves why people can't be nicer to one another, more helpful, more cooperative? And indeed, one could phrase the central normative question of the social sciences... | read |

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THE CLASH OF IDEAS IN WORLD POLITICS

BY JOHN M. OWEN IV

The Arab Awakening - the chain of rebellions and revolutions that have rocked the Arab world since last December - has riveted the attention of people the world over... | read |

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NEITHER BEAST NOR GOD

BY GILBERT MEILAENDER

The term 'dignity' has been used with increasing frequency--but in very different ways--in the field of bioethics... | read |

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AGE OF FRACTURE

BY DANIEL T. RODGERS

In the midst of a heated political discussion, you may still hear it said that ideas don't matter. Ideas are mere veils, we say: gauze draped over the harder stuff of interests and prejudice... | read |

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BLIND SPOTS

BY MAX H. BAZERMAN AND ANN E. TENBRUNSEL

During the trying times that have followed the financial collapse of 2008, a long list of culprits has been blamed: homebuyers, mortgage lenders, bankers, Congress, and the Bush administration... | read

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ON INTELLIGENCE

BY MICHAEL MILBURN

Although I recognized the concept of intelligence from an early age, it wasn't until high school that I realized that being smart meant more than getting good grades, and that different people could be smart in different ways... | read |

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BOOKS | DARWIN'S CONJECTURE

BY GEOFFREY M. HODGSON and THORBJORN KNUDSEN

Social scientists have been wary of applying Darwin's ideas. In our book Darwin's Conjecture: The Search for General Principles of Social and Economic Evolution we argue that these misgivings are ungrounded... | read |

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BOOKS | HUMAN DIGNITY

BY GEORGE KATEB

My book is a defense of human dignity. I mean that it is a defense of the equal status of individuals or persons vis-à-vis one another, and a defense of the superior stature of the human species vis-à-vis all others species... | read |

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BOOKS | ECONOMIC ORIGINS OF ROMAN CHRISTIANITY

BY ROBERT B. EKELUND Jr. and ROBERT D. TOLLISON

The Roman Catholic Church, a principal world religion today in competition with other Christian faiths, had, by 1600, achieved dominance over huge swaths of Europe... | read |

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IDEAS | THE CURRENT CRISIS AND THE ESSENCE OF CAPITALISM

THOMAS K. McCRAW

The worldwide economic downturn is no short-term blip but a full-fledged crisis of capitalism. Amid the din of commentary and political posturing, it is appropriate to return to first principles for a better understanding of the crisis. What are these principles? The answer requires a foray into history... | read |

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BOOKS | THE HEBREW REPUBLIC

BY ERIC NELSON

It has become commonplace to attribute the rise of modern political thought in the West to a process of "secularization." In Medieval and Renaissance Europe, so the story goes, political thought was fundamentally Christian, an exercise in applied theology... | read |

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BOOKS | GOD AFTER DARWIN

BY JOHN F. HAUGHT

Evolutionary biology claims that organisms and species are the product of three main factors: accidental variations or mutations, blind natural selection, and an enormous amount of time... | read |

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BOOKS | SPINOZA, THE MORAL HERETIC

BY MATTHEW J. KISNER

Examining one of history's most and important and misunderstood figures | read |

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BOOKS | THE ANCIENT ORACLES

BY RICHARD STONEMAN

For more than a thousand years, the peoples of ancient Greece consulted oracles for guidance. In political decisions or in the quandaries of daily life, they turned to the gods (usually Apollo), and asked for advice in words... | read |

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BOOKS | DO-IT-YOURSELF SCIENCE

BY STEVE FULLER

We live in a time of devolved authority from the state to communities, groups and individuals. This applies no less to science... | read |

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BOOKS | HOW DID I BECOME "ME"?

BY MEL THOMPSON

When I meet someone, I know them to be a person. I can start to get to know them, learn their history, their views, their aspirations. I may immediately sense... | read |

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BOOKS | PLATO'S POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

BY MARK BLITZ

"Plato's Political Philosophy", examines the central phenomena of political life by clarifying Plato's understanding of them. Plato's understanding is especially useful because he offers the first articulation of the core elements of human... | read |

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SLOUCHING TOWARD GAUTAMA: TOWARD A BUDDHIST POLITICS OF FREEDOM

BY ZACH DORFMAN

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BOOKS | THE ENLARGEMENT OF LIFE: MORAL IMAGINATION AT WORK

BY JOHN KEKES

The title comes from Santayana, writing in Three Philosophical Poets of "a steady contemplation of all things in their order and worth. Such a contemplation is imaginative..." | read |

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LES HOUCHES IS VERY COMPLICATED

BY CHRISTOPHER FLYNN

"Un billet pour Les Huaches," I tell the young man in the glass booth."Les Huaches?" he repeats. "What is Les Huaches?" The way he says it and the suffering in his face tell me... | read |

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AN ELEMENTAL GRISLINESS: HORROR, BEAUTY AND TRUTH IN POETRY

BY JAMES AITCHISON

For a few poets and many readers, there is only one kind of poetic truth. When Keats imagines the Grecian urn saying: '"Beauty is truth, truth beauty"', he understands that beauty is... | read |

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SHORT STORY | THE LIGHTBEARER

BY CARL BLOOM

What is faith, without a little test now and then? Like the camper striking his flint into a pile of damp leaves, "The next spark will get it going, for sure!" Even if his thumbs start to bleed... | read |

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IRAN'S CONTINUING CHALLENGE

BY ADAM C. SEITZ AND ANTHONY H. CORDESMAN

The Islamic Republic of Iran presents a wide range of challenges in a region that is already plagued by insecurity and conflict... | read |

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CHINA'S MEDIA: A STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE

BY JAMES F. SCOTTON

Almost all the media in China -- the Xinhua national news agency, Central China Television (CCTV), some 2,100 newspapers, 9,000 periodicals, nearly 400 television stations, 200 radio stations and every book publisher-are owned by the government... | read |   

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