Life, American Style

Take some favorable demographics, add a generous shot of American ingenuity, and stir in a very large quantity of natural gas, and you have the beginning of a bright new American future.

The truth about jobs.

Creating and sustaining mutual trust was an important public commitment of America’s early years—one that we seem increasingly unable to make.

The mass warehousing of convicts is a sign of America’s faltering belief in second chances. Considering how individuals atone for their crimes can help us restore rehabilitation as an ideal.

The "Johnson treatment" meets the "Kennedy mystique" in Robert Caro's latest installment on Lyndon Baines Johnson.

The German philosopher whose ideas would leave an indelible mark on Europe was embraced by Americans eager to see in him a reflection of their own image.

Americans are obsessed with competition, but they forget that cooperation and collective effort are the foundation of freedom.

The ceaseless quest for redemption in politics and culture is one of the chronic infirmities of American national life. But God forbid we should ever give it up.

Competition seems to be hard-wired into humans, but is that such a bad thing? A look at where competing has gotten us.

In Selma, there's a tangible sense of regret at how little the 50th anniversary celebrations had to do with the people who actually live there.

Bad schools are not going to sink the American economy. Despite what the headlines say, U. S. students fare well in international comparisons. It's the schools serving the poor that demand our attention.

In February 2009, American television will go digital, and million of sets will fade to fuzz. It's but the latest episode in TV's colorful history, as the living-room set has evolved from a clunky box to a sleek rectangle on the wall.

It’s no cause for celebration, but the global financial crisis shows why the United States remains the indispensable nation.

Up close and personal with a man who embodies America's latest strategy for fighting homelessness.

Three events defined 1989 in NYC: the Central Park jogger attack, the murder of Yusef Hawkins, and the election of the city's first (and only) black mayor.

Joseph Smith called for Zion to be a classless commune in which Mormons would “hold all things in common."

Advocating liberty of conscience, he built a wall between the wilderness of the world and the garden of faith that has shaped our political discourse for the last 400 years.

In our globalized economy, competitors can suddenly appear out of nowhere — if we can see them at all. The new environment spells trouble for some people, opportunity for others.

Competition can produce excellence, but there are many other factors at play.

Whether in covered wagons or station wagons, Americans have always hit the road, driven by the belief that a better life lies over the hill and around the bend.

Bizarrely, it was World War II that brought psychiatry, and more specifically, psychoanalysis, into the mainstream of American culture.

The United States has settled for a patchwork approach to infrastructure. To stay ahead in the global economy, it needs to build adaptable networks like the 1956 Interstate Highway System.

Pouring more concrete will not by itself answer our infrastructure prayers. Look instead to the transformative power of information technology.

A Princeton political scientist reveals that many of our worst fears about America’s voters are true.

With the murder of Malcolm X, the Selma-to-Montgomery march, and the passage of the Voting Rights Act, 1965 was a pivotal year in American history. What lessons does it hold for America in 2015?

“Elite” is the laziest slur in the book. Yet, on both the left and right, “elites” — however we define them — are getting whupped.

“Take what’s in front of you, not what it was or could be. And do what you can with it.”

Millions of men saw combat during World War II. Others were so far removed from the action that their guilt and regret endures to this day.

In 1989, "Seinfeld" and "The Simpsons" debuted. Yada, yada yada … television permanently changed.

In 2006, we first learned of a former Taliban spokesman studying at Yale. Eight years later, we follow up for the rest of the story.

How you should actually think about the Persian Gulf War.

Welcome to the jumble.

The automation crisis of the 1960s created a surge of alarm over technology’s job-killing effects. There is a lot we can learn from it.

Millions of young people will never attend four-year colleges. America must do more to equip them to secure good jobs and live fulfilling lives.

Snatched from a marketplace in Sudan and sold into slavery at the age of six, William Mawwin became one of millions of people in the world enduring some form of involuntary servitude. This is his extraordinary story.

Feel free to help yourself: there is a booming market for self-improvement guides.

Online review culture — on sites like Yelp, Amazon, and IMDb — is dotted with black holes of bad taste.

Love and its costs.

All evidence to the contrary, we continue to believe, deep in our hearts, that the Founders’ “We the People” meant all the people, not just the propertied white men.

A history of disabled people in the United States.

The great 19th-century observer of America's democratic revolution has much to teach the tumultuous new century.

Though Americans see upward mobility as their birthright, that assumption faces growing challenges, with consequences not just for the size of our wallets, but for the tenor of our politics.

For 36 years, it has been The Wilson Quarterly's central preoccupation: What's on the horizon for the great American experiment?

“If we’re not talking about why black people and white people don’t hang out and play Scrabble together, we’re not talking about the problem.”

America is "an unprecedented marketplace of truth and argument that far surpasses ancient Greece, Cartesian France, 19th-century Germany, or any other place one can name over the past three millennia."

Inside the American cult of youth.

When wages stagnate and inequality rises, Americans try to borrow their way toward the American dream. Inevitably, the bubble bursts. But we can learn from the lessons of 1929.

Across America, small and midsize cities, particularly those that traditionally have relied on manufacturing, are struggling to forge new identities in a globalized world gripped by recession.

An era of debt-fueled consumption has come to an end, and with it the economic culture that created it. If government is going to fill in for consumers, it will need to be smart about how it spends.

In a world so saturated in connectivity that every last oddball can find a poll, a pie chart, or an online pal to confirm that he's not alone, there are still some gaps that can't be bridged.

When Michael Barone began his career as a political observer, Los Angeles was like Des Moines by the sea and America was transfixed by the Vietnam war and the counterculture. Nobody saw the deeper forces that were beginning to transform the nation.

Friendships that were once maintained with the rudimentary technology of pen and paper are now reinforced 24/7 with the stroke of a few keys. A longtime letter writer reflects on what has been gained — and lost.

America’s enduring love affair with big spending is fetching up against some unromantic realities. But a lifelong saver assures us that there are worse fates than socking it away for a rainy day.

In 1970s New York, an age of austerity led to a rise in graffiti. So it is in Greece, 40 years later.

Given hypothetical, anything-goes permission to choose from a creepy, unlimited vending machine of endings, what would you select? Should you have the right to choose?

Today’s new austerity may have an upside if it prods schools to embrace new technologies that cut costs and improve learning.

Nelson escaped gang violence in Honduras and crossed the border illegally. The 19-year-old now faces a new country, high school, and immigration court, while New York City grapples with the legal proceedings of the thousands of unaccompanied Central American immigrant youths like him.

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.