Fall 2009, No. 14

By the time you open these pages, the Senate will be locked in one of the most important legislative battles of our time: whether or not to extend health insurance coverage to all Americans, and how. But the health-care debate is only one of many facing this country, from higher-education quality to state budget deficits to American foreign policy in the Middle East.

Each of these subjects, and more, is covered in the Winter 2010 issue. In our cover story, Kevin Carey, an analyst at the think-tank Education Sector, explains that quality, not just access, is a pressing issue in American higher education, driven by a skewed ranking system that prioritizes lavish budgets and higher tuition rates over student aptitude. The answer, he writes, lies in bringing objective data to education “consumers,” no easy task in the face of an entrenched and surprisingly powerful higher ed lobby.

In foreign policy, Shadi Hamid examines the role that a more democratic Egypt can play in Middle East peace, if President Obama can just reorient his approach to the country. Peter Edelman presents a new agenda for the inner city, Greg Anrig offers a novel solution to the state budget crisis, and veteran Ted Kennedy watcher Thomas Oliphant gives his unique take on the Senate’s late Liberal Lion.

Back Issues Archive

Symposium

The Race to Innovate

Techno-envy: Anyone who's been to Japan knows the feeling walking among the endless electronics emporia of Akihabara, the epicenter of Tokyo consumer technology, is like stepping a decade into the future. You see cell phones that double as credit cards and...

By The Editors

5 MIN READ

America and the World: We're #40!

By Stephen Ezell

13 MIN READ

Finance: Before the Next Meltdown

By Simon Johnson James Kwak

12 MIN READ

Manufacturing: Up from the Ashes

By Susan Christopherson

13 MIN READ

Education: Bringing Innovation to Scale

By Kevin Huffman

13 MIN READ

Strategy: A National Innovation Foundation

By Howard Wial

12 MIN READ

Making Washington Focus: First, Re-Educate the Economists

By Robert Atkinson

13 MIN READ

Features

GEO-Politics

The gains of Copenhagen will be fleeting unless the world's nations create a Global Environmental Organization to enforce them.

By Edward Gresser

25 MIN READ

Book Reviews

Our Bodies, Our World

The fight for reproductive rights extend far beyond America's shores.

By Dayo Olopade

14 MIN READ

Liberalism Lost and Found

Claiming the future means embracing the full complications of the past.

By E.J. Dionne Jr.

14 MIN READ

When Rawls Met Jesus

How the philosopher's early religious beliefs guided his secular thinking.

By Hilary Bok

12 MIN READ

Islam at the Gates

Are Muslim immigrants to blame for their isolation from European society? Or is Europe?

By Joshua Hammer

13 MIN READ

Filibusted

How do you solve a problem like the Senate?

By Julian E. Zelizer

14 MIN READ

Partisan Reviews

Why we're still arguing about the old battle between East and West.

By Scott McLemee

16 MIN READ

Responses

Dereliction of Duty

The failures of the media during the Iraq War should not be assigned exclusively to the reporters. Editors deserve blame, too. A response to Leslie H. Gelb and Jeanne-Paloma Zelmati.

By Michael Getler

13 MIN READ

Big Isn't Beautiful

There's a reason why the last people who advocated large cartels haven't gotten a good shake from history: They were wrong. A response to Michael Lind.

By Robert Shapiro

11 MIN READ

Recounting

Get Religion

We don't need more lawyers or financiers. We need a new clergy class.

By Ethan Porter

11 MIN READ

Editor's Note

Editor's Note

Michael Tomasky introduces Issue #14.

By Michael Tomasky

3 MIN READ

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