'The Unencumbered Man'
Michael Tomasky
Has Barack Obama begun a more lasting realignment of national politics? The question may rest on what happens in the next six months—especially with regard to health care, climate change, and Guantánamo detainees.
The Health Reform We Need & Are Not Getting
Arnold Relman
Despite a presidential commitment to and wide popular support for a health care overhaul, the reforms now being debated are missing the main target. They will expand insurance coverage in the short term, but they will create a system even less affordable than the one we have.
The Same-Sex Future
David Cole
What explains the trend toward legal recognition of same-sex marriage or civil unions? While the risks of an adverse Supreme Court ruling are considerable, recent developments suggest that a state-by-state strategy that pursues civil unions politically and same-sex marriage through the courts may be most likely to succeed.
China's Dictators at Work: The Secret Story
Jonathan Mirsky
Prisoner of the State is the secretly recorded memoir of Zhao Ziyang, former General Secretary of the Chinese Communist party, who was thrown out of office just before the Tiananmen killings for sympathizing with the students and spent the rest of his life under house arrest. In it, he not only repudiates his mentor, Deng Xiaoping, but also makes what may be the first statement by a Chinese leader in favor of western-style parliamentary democracy.
Divided Iran on the Eve
Malise Ruthven
While Iranians went to the polls on June 12 to elect their next president, world leaders have been increasingly concerned about the Islamic Republic and its pursuit of nuclear energy. Yet the Iranian regime's embrace of messianic Shi'ism has long contended with a highly-educated and secularized society. Despite the revolutionary rhetoric, its leaders may be less concerned with obscure scriptural dictates than with a rational pursuit of power.
What to Do About Darfur
Nicholas D. Kristof
The slaughter in Darfur has now lasted longer than World War II. Yet Darfur's advocates are stalled and divided—even as millions of Darfuris are left without assistance, and some are dying. Did the Darfur movement lose its way? Does it know what it's doing? And what should be done next?
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