Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World
After my co-editor, Jonathan N. Katz, and I took over editorship of Political Analysis in January 2010, one of our primary goals was to extend the readership and intellectual reach of our journal. We wished to grow our readership internationally, and to also deepen our reach outside of political science, into other social sciences.
By Elvin Lim
On 9/11 each year, the media reenacts the trauma the American people experienced in 2001. Images already burnished in our minds are replayed. Memorials services are held, moments of silence are observed, and the national anthem is sung. National myth-making occurs at the very site where national disaster occurs, so that a new birth of freedom rises phoenix-like from the ashes of ruin.
In the New York Times Magazine, Jonathan Chait roiled the waters of progressive opinion by claiming that the left is a little delusional in its criticism of Obama for failing to do more to improve the economy. Accusing liberals and leftists of “magical thinking,” Chait wrote that the left overlooks a major obstacle Obama would have faced had he pursued a larger stimulus plan in early
By Claire Potter
As a citizen, it is sometimes a jolt to realize that September 11 is now a decade in the past. As a teacher of modern United States history who ended her twentieth-century survey last fall with the attack on the twin towers, it was even more of a jolt to realize that a first-year college student who had matriculated in September 2010 might recall only the faint outlines of an event that definitively altered the course of our century. A student who entered high school in that same month would likely have been familiar with images of the smoke billowing out of the World Trade Center towers
By Louis René Beres
Every time I get on an airplane, I am struck by the contradictions. As a species, we can take tons of heavy metal, and transform them into a once-unfathomable vehicle of travel. At the same time, we are required to take off our shoes, and discard our bottled water, before being allowed to board. The point, of course, is not to make us more comfortable (those days are long gone), but to ensure that we don’t blow up the aircraft.
In classrooms across the country on September 11, 2001, lesson plans were abruptly abandoned. Students and teachers gathered around televisions, sharing the sense that “history” was being made before their eyes. Patricia Latessa, a Cincinnati high school teacher, turned on the cafeteria television “and watched history unfold.” She reflected as she watched about how the scenes of airplanes flying into buildings would impact her students
By Susan Herman
Post-9/11 surveillance measures have made it far too easy for the government to review our personal and business records, telephone and e-mail conversations, and virtually all aspects of our lives. For example, Under the so-called “library provision” of the
By Andrew Staniforth
For Americans, no act of terrorism compares to the attacks and from that moment the history of the United States has been divided into ‘Before 9/11’ and ‘After 9/11’. In lower Manhattan, on a field in Pennsylvania, and along the banks of the Potomac, the United States suffered its largest loss of life from an enemy attack on its own soil. Within just 102 minutes, four commercial jets would be simultaneously hijacked and used as weapons of mass destruction to kill ordinary citizens as part of a coordinated attack that would shape the first decade of a new century.
With the new school year approaching, Social Explorer is taking a closer look at education data today and over the years. In this installment, we are looking at some of the earliest reported census data related to education.
The Census Bureau first reported literacy data on reading and writing in 1840. At the time, 91.5 percent of the adult white population (over the age of 20) was literate.
By Edward Zelinsky
Warren Buffett has again called on Congress to raise federal taxes on affluent taxpayers. In an opinion piece in the New York Times, Mr. Buffett urged Congress to increase federal taxes on taxpayers with annual incomes greater than $1,000,000. As he has in the past, Mr. Buffett contrasted his effective tax rate with
By Joseph McCartin
As Americans celebrate Labor Day 2012, the movement whose struggles led to the creation of this national holiday – the union movement – arguably faces its most profound crisis since Congress declared this national holiday in 1894. Indeed with the labor market weakened by the Great Recession and unemployment stubbornly high according the just released
By Michael Otto
Dear First Lady Obama:
I am writing this letter in support of your Let’s Move campaign against obesity. As you well know, traditional recommendations for physical activity and good nutrition have met with failure in the United States. According to the Center for Disease Control, rates of adults who engage in no leisure time physical activity have been in the range of 20-30% for over 20 years. Moreover, over 75% of individuals do not
By Sharon Zukin
Everyone knows by now that Tropical Storm Irene, which blew through the East Coast last weekend, flooded the beaches, suburbs and some inland towns but did little lasting damage in New York City. I have seldom felt so lucky to live on a high floor with no river view and on a street with very few trees.
By Peter Gill
In the course of 17 minutes, Newsnight managed to review six years’ worth of all that had gone wrong in Ethiopia, from post-election violence in 2005, to the intensified anti-insurgency operations in Somali Region after 2007, to more recent opposition complaints that their supporters were being deprived of international development assistance. To emphasise the British aid connection, the film concluded: ‘The purpose of development aid is to help Ethiopia on to its feet, to establish democracy, justice and the rule of law. The evidence we’ve gathered suggests it is failing.’
With the new school year approaching, Social Explorer is taking a closer look at education data today and over the years. The most recent available data (from the 2009 American Community Survey) reveal education levels and distinctions among groups, as well as the correlations between educational attainment, income and employment.
The most recent available data (from the 2009 American Community Survey) reveal education levels and distinctions among groups, as well as the correlations between educational attainment, income and employment.
By Louis René Beres
In Plato’s Republic, a canonic centerpiece of all Western thought, we first read of the “philosopher king,” a visionary leader who would impressively combine deep learning with effective governance. Today, almost 2400 years later, such leadership is nowhere to be found, either in Washington, or in any other major world capital.