What happened? Fourteen months ago, the progressive moment was on the ascent. Barack Obama, it was anticipated, would be a transformative president, and so many things seemed possible.

Today...it’s not that all hopes have been crushed by any means. But it’s certainly fair to say that events aren’t shaking up the way we hoped. What went wrong?

For the issue you’re now holding, we asked nine of our country’s leading progressive thinkers and writers to consider that question and assess where liberalism stands. The roster of contributors is formidable: Michael Sandel, Joe Klein, Katha Pollitt, Martha Nussbaum, Michael Walzer, Robert Reich, and others. Their insights about Barack Obama and liberalism more generally are trenchant and well worth your time.

But that’s not the only thing in the spring 2010 issue. Esteemed policy expert John J. Di Iulio, Jr. offers a surprising analysis of crime in America—it hasn’t been reduced as much as you might think, and the time is now for a new crime bill that reduces crime even further and reins in the prison-industrial complex. The noted historian Michael Kazin delivers a serious treatment if not of Sarah Palin herself, then of Palinism. And much more.