The legendary diplomat was a deeply imperfect specimen of the human condition. Yet at his most statesmanlike moments, he could be extraordinary.
Michael O'Donnell
Michael O’Donnell is a lawyer in the Chicago area. His work has appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Atlantic.
Posted inBooks, Magazine, Main, November/December 2018
Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Long Fight for Equality
As an advocate and a judge, she has used ingenuity, tenacity, and strategic brilliance to attack the legal foundations of discrimination in America.
Posted inBooks, July/August 2018, Magazine
Ready to Blow
In 1983, a nuclear war game almost turned real. Have we learned our lesson?
Posted inBooks, Featured
Russia’s Founding Father
A new, definitive biography of Mikhail Gorbachev tells the story of the man most responsible for ending the Cold War.
Posted inBooks, Magazine, March/April/May 2017
The Worst Job in the World
The most successful chiefs of staff have known not only how to take charge but also when to leave.
Posted inBooks, Magazine, March/April/May 2016, Politics
Shoot the Hippies
Kent State’s lessons in the age of Donald Trump.
Posted inPolitics
It Will Be Easy to Replace Antonin Scalia
Antonin Scalia’s unexpected death came as a shock to me—and not just because I had plans until recently to go hiking this weekend in Big Bend, Texas, where the justice died. Scalia has been a fixture on the Supreme Court for my entire legal career, and he didn’t seem to be going anywhere. During Barack […]
Posted inBooks, Magazine, Politics, September/October 2015
Restoring Henry
Niall Ferguson, Kissinger’s authorized biographer, begins the arduous task of rolling his subject’s fallen reputation back up the hill. The historian Greg Grandin kicks it right back down again.
Posted inBooks, Government, June/July/August 2015, Magazine
On Not Canonizing the Gipper
Efforts to elevate Ronald Reagan’s reputation to Rooseveltian heights continue. Time to stand athwart historians and yell “Stop!”
Posted inJanuary/February 2015, Magazine
SCOTUS Heads Toward the Cliff
Conservatives have made the Supreme Court radical. But not radical enough for libertarians.
