Category Archives: Politics

The New Yorker Magazine Dec. 30, 2024 & Jan. 6, 2025

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The New Yorker (December 23, 2024): Diana Ejaita’s “Midnight Moments” – The magical blur of New Year’s Eve.

How Much Does Our Language Shape Our Thinking?

English continues to expand into diverse regions around the world. The question is whether humanity will be homogenized as a result. By Manvir Singh

Alice Munro’s Passive Voice

The celebrated writer’s partner sexually abused her daughter Andrea. The abuse transformed Munro’s fiction, but she left it to Andrea to confront the true story. By Rachel Aviv

Is There Any Escape from the Spotify Syndrome?

The history of recorded music is now at our fingertips. But the streamer’s algorithmic skill at giving us what we like may keep us from what we’ll love. By Hua Hsu

Hoover Institution: Best Books On Politics In 2024

Hoover Year in Review Books

Hoover Institution (December 22, 2024): The depth of Hoover’s scholarship is reflected in the numerous books published by our fellows on a broad variety of topics and issues.

The Boiling Moat: Urgent Steps to Defend Taiwan

Boiling Moat by Matt Pottinger


Edited by Matt Pottinger (Hoover Institution Press) Publication Date: July 1, 2024

Chinese leader Xi Jinping has openly expressed his intention to annex Taiwan to mainland China, even threatening the use of force. An invasion or blockade of Taiwan by Chinese forces would be catastrophic, with severe consequences for democracies worldwide. In The Boiling Moat, Matt Pottinger and a team of scholars and distinguished military and political leaders urgently outline practical steps for deterrence.

the full proceedings from this conference—the presentations, responses, and discussions. In it, participants debate the meaning of getting monetary policy “back on track,” the significance of recent bank failures, and how to improve forecasting and oversight.

The End of Everything: How Wars Descend into Annihilation

The End of Everything: How Wars Descend into Annihilation


By Victor Davis Hanson (Basic Books)
Publication Date: May 7, 2024

In The End of Everything, military historian Victor Davis Hanson narrates a series of sieges and sackings that span centuries, from the age of antiquity to the conquest of the New World, to show how societies descend into barbarism and obliteration. In the stories of Thebes, Carthage, Constantinople, and Tenochtitlan, he depicts war’s drama, violence, and folly. Highlighting the naivete that plagued the vanquished and the wrath that justified mass slaughter, Hanson delivers a sobering call to contemporary readers to heed the lessons of obliteration lest we blunder into catastrophe once again.

At War with Ourselves: My Tour of Duty in the Trump White House

At War with Ourselves


By H.R. McMaster (HarperCollins Publishers)
Publication Date: August 27, 2024

At War with Ourselves is the story of helping a disruptive president drive necessary shifts in US foreign policy at a critical moment in history. H.R. McMaster entered an administration beset by conflict and the hyperpartisanship of American politics. With the candor of a soldier and the perspective of a historian, McMaster rises above the fray to lay bare the good, the bad, and the ugly of Trump’s presidency and give readers insight into what a second Trump term might look like.

Documenting Communism: The Hoover Project to Microfilm and Publish the Soviet Archives

Documenting Communism: The Hoover Project to Microfilm and Publish the Soviet Archives


By Charles G. Palm (Hoover Institution Press) Foreword by Condoleezza Rice, Introduction by Stephen Kotkin
Publication Date: June 1, 2024

In late 1991, the Soviet Union was officially dissolved. Over the next 12 years, the Hoover Institution microfilmed and published the newly opened records of the Soviet Communist Party and the Soviet State. Charles Palm, who led this mission, details how he and his colleagues secured a historic agreement with the Russian Federation, then launched and successfully carried out the joint project with the Russian State Archives and their partner, Chadwyck-Healey Ltd.

Foreign Affairs Magazine: The Best Essays Of 2024

FOREIGN AFFAIRS MAGAZINE (December 22, 2024): The top essays of the year include…

The Self-Doubting Superpower

By Fareed Zakaria

America shouldn’t give up on the world it made.

Why Gaza Matters

By Jean-Pierre Filiu

Since antiquity, the territory has shaped the quest for power in the Middle East.

Israel’s Self-Destruction

By Aluf Benn

Netanyahu, the Palestinians, and the price of neglect.

Russia Is Burning Up Its Future

By Andrei Kolesnikov

How Putin’s pursuit of power has hollowed out the country and its people.

The Trouble With “the Global South”

By Comfort Ero

What the West gets wrong about the rest.

The New York Times Magazine – Dec. 22, 2024

In this issue, Nicholas Casey and Paolo Pellegrin on the journey to receive medical treatment for Palestinians in Gaza; Jason Diamond on the dancer and choreographer Mikhail Baryshnikov; Jenna (J) Wortham on the new social media platform Bluesky; and more.

THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE (December 21, 2024): The 12,22,24 issue features ‘Escape From Gaza’…

For a Desperate Few, a Hectic Escape From Gaza

The war is nearly impossible to flee — except for a small number of sick and wounded who are offered a dramatic path to safety. By Nicholas Casey

Is Mikhail Baryshnikov the Last of the Highbrow Superstars?

Fifty years since he left the Soviet Union, he insists on using his huge fame to bring attention to difficult, esoteric art. By Jason Diamond

Another New Twitter? Good Luck With That.

Users are now flocking to Bluesky. But every social media platform becomes a wasteland in the end. By J Wortham

Saturday Morning: News And Stories From London

Monocle on Saturday (December 21, 2024): Join Georgina Godwin and Charles Hecker reflect on the week’s top news stories and cultural highlights.

Plus: an engaging conversation with Ferdia Lennon, the winner of the prestigious Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Comic Fiction Prize.

Politics: National Review Magazine – February 2025

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NATIONAL REVIEW MAGAZINE (December 20, 2024): The latest issue features ‘William F. Buckley Jr. at 100’…

Why Bill Buckley’s Ideas Still Matter

An enduring fusion by Ramesh Ponnuru

The Elements of Buckley’s Style

Prose makes the man by Andrew Ferguson

Life of the Party

WFB as pop icon by James Rosen

Opinion & Politics: Reason Magazine – February 2025

Reason magazine, February 2025 cover image

REASON MAGAZINE (December 20, 2024): The latest issue features ‘Maga Musk’….

The Improbable Rise of MAGA-Musk

Is Elon Musk a reactionary with a defective bullshit meter or the best part of the second Trump administration?

Finding Trillions in Federal Cuts Is Easy. But Will Trump and Musk Follow Through?

DOGE won’t necessarily have to kill any of Republicans’ sacred cows—but they will have to be put on a diet.

‘The Constitution Is Not a Suicide Pact’

How a 1949 Supreme Court dissent gave birth to a meme that subverts free speech and civil liberties

The Pentagon Keeps Losing Equipment and Buying Stuff It Doesn’t Need

How the U.S. military busts its budget on wasteful, careless, and unnecessary ‘self-licking ice cream cones’

The Economist Magazine – December 21, 2024 Preview

The Economist (December 18, 2024): The Holiday double issue features…

What to make of 2024

A turbulent year has shed fresh light on some important truths

Keep the Caucasus safe from Russia

The protesters and the president need help

Global warming is speeding up. Another reason to think about geoengineering

Reducing sulphur emissions saves lives. But it could also be hastening planetary warming

The Economist’s country of the year for 2024

The winner toppled a tyrant and seems headed for something better

Culture/Politics: Harper’s Magazine – January 2025

Harper’s Magazine (December 18, 2024): The latest issue features ‘Ghost Music’ – Inside Spotify’s Fake-Artist Scheme; Among the Ruins of Lebanon and Cynthia Ozick on the Pleasures of Letter Writing…

The Ghosts in the Machine

Spotify’s plot against musicians by Liz Pelly

The Forever Cure

Is civil commitment rehabilitating sex offenders—or punishing them? by Jordan Michael Smith

Voices from the Dead Letter Office

On the epistolary life by Cynthia Ozick