Inside Israel

The Despair of Zion

– Walter Reich

Any effort to bring peace between Israelis and Palestinians must reckon with the fact that bitter experience has taught many Israelis to doubt that their foes want a lasting concord.

Israel at 62

– Yoram Peri

Israelis are increasingly unhappy with a political system that seems to deliver nothing but strife and division.

What's Next for the Start-Up Nation?

– Dan Senor and Saul Singer

Adversity, like necessity, is often the mother of invention.

The Rude Birth of Immigration Reform

– Katherine Benton-Cohen

As America debates immigration reform, it is in danger of repeating the mistakes made a century ago when the flawed foundations of today’s policies were established.

America: Land of Loners?

– Daniel Akst

Americans, plugged in and on the move, are confiding in their pets, their computers, and their spouses. What they need is to rediscover the value of friendship.

The Irish in Paris

– Max Byrd

For centuries, the passionate and sometimes persecuted Irish have felt a peculiar sympathy with Europe’s self-anointed capital of sophistication.

Turkey's Role Reversals

– Michael Thumann

In Turkey, secularists cling to a decaying old order while pious Muslims lead the way toward modernization. But will the upstarts create a genuinely pluralist new order?

In Defense of Capitalism

– The Wilson Quarterly

The real threat to capitalism comes not from socialist ideologues, but misguided technocrats.

The Tea Party's Short Sip

– The Wilson Quarterly

Unlike most American populist movements, the Tea Party seeks to neutralize, not use, political power.

Judges for Sale

– The Wilson Quarterly

It's one of the ugliest warts on the U.S. body politic: About 90 percent of America’s state judges are chosen in elections.

Political Generals

– The Wilson Quarterly

American military has a long-standing tradition of political neutrality, but in recent presidential elections a “disturbing trend” has emerged.

Reaching Out to the Russians

– The Wilson Quarterly

Today, NATO is making a strategic mistake by not integrating Russia into the alliance, argues Charles A. Kupchan.

Measuring Military Might

– The Wilson Quarterly

It's the million-dollar question of international relations scholarship: Why are some states stronger than others?

The Risks of Oil Independence

– The Wilson Quarterly

If the United States and the rest of the developed world no longer needed foreign oil, what would become of oil-exporting countries?

Closing the Achievement Gap

– The Wilson Quarterly

The racial achievement gap, one of the deepest and most intractable American social problems.

Toward a Post-Prison Society

– The Wilson Quarterly

More people go to jail each year for violating probationary “community supervision” than for committing fresh crimes.

Anger Under Siege

– The Wilson Quarterly

Studies show that today Americans are more likely to want to conceal their anger than the Chinese.

Localized Pain

– The Wilson Quarterly

Hand-wringing abounds over the future of newspapers.

Atheists Anonymous

– The Wilson Quarterly

What does it mean to be a nonbelieving pastor?

Relax at Your Peril

– The Wilson Quarterly

If you don’t want to go the way of the dodo, make your religion more extreme.

Modern Gods

– The Wilson Quarterly

In India, religion is becoming uniform, politicized, and, often, fundamentalist—a menace to the pluralism and tolerance that have long characterized the country’s religious life.

I, Geminoid

– The Wilson Quarterly

Subtly but surely, robots are making their way into our everyday lives.

Cassava Rising

– The Wilson Quarterly

To Americans, cassava root is a stranger in the produce aisle. But for 800 million people around the world, it's the main staple of their diets.

Publish and Perish?

– The Wilson Quarterly

How to raise the revenue needed to produce science journals? Charge the authors!

Off the Dolphin Deep End

– The Wilson Quarterly

Up until the late 1950s, no one thought of dolphins as intelligent, peaceful, or uninhibited.

Chapter and Verse

– The Wilson Quarterly

A diminishing sense of literary style, poet Robert Alter writes, is depriving us of "one of the keen pleasure in the reading experience."

The Art of Life

– The Wilson Quarterly

Welcome to the weird world of bioart.

Michelangelo's Passion

– The Wilson Quarterly

“The artist protests a chaste love, but he does so with a passion that, for a modern sensibility, can only with difficulty be conceived as chaste.”

Enterprising Apparatchiks

– The Wilson Quarterly

In Russia, there wasn’t a law on the books criminalizing human trafficking until December 2003.

Indonesia's Democracy Pie

– The Wilson Quarterly

Indonesia is alternately hailed as one of the great democratic success stories or bemoaned for its corruption. Both judgments are justified.

Red, White, and Balkan

– The Wilson Quarterly

“To walk around Ferizaj is to move through a weird fantasy that never came true in the Middle East.”

Debt Karma

– The Wilson Quarterly

Poor countries and enormous foreign debt go hand in hand.

Prime Mover

– Michael Anderson

Muriel Spark forms, with Evelyn Waugh and Graham Greene, “a grand triumvirate of Catholic-convert novelists."

Pulse of the People

– Daniel Walker Howe

Islam's Political Problem

– Jay Tolson

In the annals of well-meaning ineptitude, Western efforts to locate and support moderate Muslim voices deserve a place of distinction.

Life Chances

– Rich Benjamin

The three pillars that once bolstered black Americans—community, school, and family—are now miserably failing at-risk black kids.

Listening Tour

– Megan Buskey

The first widely observed national moment of silence occurred in Britain in 1919.

Germany, With a Side of Quirk

– Martin Walker

It is not easy to be funny about the Germans, and unusual to be affectionate about them.

What's for Dinner in Africa

– Erica Bleeg

Particular dishes have become symbols of a rich and complicated culinary heritage that has spread into the African diaspora.

When They Were Out to Get Us

– Michael C. Moynihan

The strange, paranoid days of the 1970s are back. In fact, they never really went away.

Literary Lobs

– John Brown

There was a time when the United States had no qualms about using books as “weapons in the war of ideas.”

Doctoring History

– Charles Barber

All surgeons must devise a “way in” to their operation—choosing the entry point and the methodology for each complex procedure.

Up to Here

– Darcy Courteau

Hoarders' connection to objects is so real that some have committed suicide after forced cleanups.

Sweat Equity

– Winfred Gallagher

How yoga went mainstream.

Meeting of the Minds

– Michelle Sieff

The long quest to make sense of the intimacy between Hannah Arendt and Martin Heidegger.