Michael Lind

In his insightful and important essay “Taking Liberty” (Washington Monthly, April 2005), William Galston, one of contemporary America’s leading social and political thinkers, is right to insist that liberty should be at the heart of American progressive politics. And he is right to caution against “a temptation by many, especially on the left,” to redefine […]

Although the authors claim that “we are not members of either of the two great political tribes that dominate the American commentariat,” the truth is that they and The Economist belong to the libertarian wing of the right (and the imperial wing, too–The Economist was a cheerleader for the disastrous war in Iraq). By repeatedly […]

How did educated Westerners come to make enemies of an inspiration that has changed the lives of billions of people?” Robert H. Wiebe writes at the beginning of his eloquent and profound new study of the phenomenon of nationalism, Who We Are. During World War I, American progressives like Woodrow Wilson viewed national self-determination as […]

As a result, America’s education debate is as surreal as it is hypocritical. Our nation’s leaders speak and act as though the future of American education will be determined in Washington, and routinely promise to make education reform one of their major priorities in office. Yet the actual role of the federal government in education […]

When Lyndon Johnson was president between 1963 and 1969, the world grew familiar with the “Western White House”–the Johnson ranch on the Pedernales River west of Austin, in the heart of his beloved central Texan hill country. Three decades later, newly elected President George W. Bush began hosting foreign leaders and American officials at his […]