Dov Zakheim admits that his own appointment as coordinator for Afghanistan reconstruction – on top of his day job as Pentagon comptroller–in 2002 was a reflection of the Bush administration's lack of a serious policy. His concluding confession is notable for its mature humility, both about the need for American power and on the part of those who wield it.

The deepest questions of life are illuminated not by mechanistic and materialist explanations but through humane studies in the great philosophical tradition of the West.

Betty Friedan's fatal mistakewas attackingthe domestic sphere itself--along with all the women who chose to live there.

Nicholson Baker's Human Smoke is a cheerful contribution to the movement against scholarship.