Americans have been trying to shape democracy around the world for more than a century. It is the American mission, our distinctive form of evangelism. But when President Bush declared, in his second inaugural address, that "the survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands," he elevated this cause—the "Freedom Agenda," as he called it—to the central theme of American foreign policy. Yet the war in Iraq has proven the folly of seeking to impo...

A man who had won the Nobel Peace Prize, who was widely counted one of the greatest UN Secretary Generals, was nearly hounded from office by scandal. Indeed, both Annan and the institution he incarnates were so deeply shaken after the Bush Administration went to war in Iraq in the face of opposition from the Security Council that critics, and even some friends, began asking whether this sixty-year-old experiment in global policing has outlived its usefulness. Do its failures arise from its...

_______________'One of the finest guides around, indeed, the best in recent memory ... beautifully written and meticulously researched' - New York Times'A highly readable account' - Economist'Some want the world to be reformed by getting rid of the UN. That would be catastrophic. What the world needs is the UN reformed. In this book, Traub tells the story of how difficult that is - and why ...

A devastating critique of our failure to prepare students for citizenship—and a roadmap to a better way.America’s Founders placed great confidence in schools, which they believed would teach young people to understand our political system and to engage in reasoned political debate as adults. Yet today, when virtually all Americans graduate from high school, we remain stunningly ignorant of history and government. In 2022, the National Assessment of Educational Prog...

As Times Square turns 100, New York Times Magazine contributing writer James Traub tells the story of how this mercurial district became one of the most famous and exciting places in the world. The Devil’s Playground is classic and colorful American history, from the first years of the twentieth century through the Runyonesque heyday of nightclubs and theaters in the 1920s and ’30s, to the district’s decline in the 1960s and its glittering corporate revival in the...

A celebrated historian recounts Hubert Humphrey’s role as a liberal hero of twentieth-century AmericaHubert Humphrey was liberalism’s most dedicated defender, and its most public and tragic sacrifice. As a young politician in 1948, he defied segregationists and forced the Democratic Party to commit itself to civil rights. As a senator in 1964, he made good on that commitment by helping pass the Civil Rights Act. But as Lyndon B. Johnson’s vice president, his suppor...

A moral examination of one of the first Jewish senators, confidante to Jefferson Davis, and champion of the cause of slaveryJudah P. Benjamin (1811–1884) was a brilliant and successful lawyer in New Orleans, and one of the first Jewish members of the U.S. Senate. He then served in the Confederacy as secretary of war and secretary of state, becoming the confidant and alter ego of Jefferson Davis. In this new biography, author James Traub grapples with the difficult ...

**A penetrating, lyrical biography of John Quincy Adams, the president and politician whose experiences spanned—and shaped—the most critical period in our nation's history."A splendid new biography .... Reliably thorough, blissfully bereft of jargon, and nicely paced."―New York Times Book Review**Few figures in American history have held as many roles in public life as John Quincy Adams. The son of John Adams, he was a brilliant ambassador and secretary of state, a...

America's Founders placed great confidence in schools, which they believed would teach young people to understand our political system and to engage in reasoned political debate as adults. Yet today, when virtually all Americans graduate from high school, we remain stunningly ignorant of history and government.In The Cradle of Citizenship, James Traub chronicles his year of observing public schools across the country, talking to teachers, scholars, and curriculum designers...

From Nixon to Clinton, Watergate to Whitewater, few Americans have observed the ups and downs of presidential leadership more closely over the past thirty years than David Gergen. A White House adviser to four presidents, both Republican and Democrat, he offers a vivid, behind-the-scenes account of their struggles to exercise power and draws from them key lessons for leaders of the future.Gergen begins Eyewitness to Power with his reminiscence of being the thirty-year-old c...

"It's hard to imagine any American reading this book and not seeing his country in a new, and deeply troubling, light."—The New York Times Book ReviewThe world's foremost critic of U.S. foreign policy exposes the hollow promises of democracy in American actions abroad—and at home.The United States has repeatedly asserted its right to intervene militarily against "failed states" around the globe. In...

An exciting new voice makes the case for a colorblind approach to politics and culture, warning that the so-called ‘anti-racist’ movement is driving us—ironically—toward a new kind of racism.As one of the few black students in his philosophy program at Columbia University years ago, Coleman Hughes wondered why his peers seemed more pessimistic about the state of American race relations than his own grandparents–who lived through segregation. The End of Race Pol...