Understanding Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson was our most confounding founder. He personified the contradictions extant at the dawn of the American republic, a man capable of eloquently articulating the Enlightenment ideals of l...
26 Aug 202146min
Arab Spring, 10 Years On
In 2011 uprisings known as the Arab Spring burned across North Africa and the Middle East, toppling autocrats in four countries and igniting protests in several more. Leaders who had been fixtures in ...
24 Aug 202130min
Embracing Defeat
The defeat in Afghanistan, punctuated by the chaotic evacuation from Kabul and sudden collapse to the Taliban, is also an opportunity for American leaders to reassess the fundamental assumptions under...
19 Aug 202141min
Charlottesville Says Goodbye to the Confederacy
Four summers after white nationalists and neo-Nazis marched on Charlottesville, the Confederate statues that they sought to defend were quietly removed. On a Saturday in July, in front of a small, sup...
17 Aug 202139min
Orbán's Allure
Fox News' host Tucker Carlson's weeklong visit to Hungary to tout the rule of prime minister Viktor Orbán raised some pressing questions. What is it about this right-wing authoritarian that so enthral...
12 Aug 202137min
Reconsidering Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Seventy-six years ago, in August, 1945, President Harry Truman made one of the most consequential decisions in history. He ordered U.S. warplanes to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and, three days late...
10 Aug 202140min
The Virus Is Still In Charge
As the Delta variant rages across the United States, hospitals are filling up with unvaccinated patients. Americans are suffering and dying needlessly, because the country has enough doses to vaccinat...
5 Aug 202125min
Cuba, Biden, and the Burden of History
Six years after President Obama tried to usher U.S.-Cuba relations into the 21st century, the two nations -- one a superpower, the other a small, weak island -- seem moored in a bygone era when intern...
3 Aug 202131min
