In Iraq and Afghanistan, General David Petraeus applied all the lessons learned in Vietnam—except for the one that mattered most.
Books
Book reviews and essays from the Washington Monthly on the new books shaping debates over politics, policy, history, and American democracy.
Posted inBooks, January/February 2013, Magazine, Politics
An Arranged Marriage
Why Eisenhower distrusted, but needed, Nixon.
Posted inBooks, January/February 2013, Law and Justice, Magazine
A New Role for Parole
African Americans suffer from high rates of incarceration and crime. Here’s how to drastically reduce both.
Posted inBooks, January/February 2013, Magazine
A Dedicated Life
Shirley Sherrod’s ongoing battle for racial cooperation in Georgia.
Posted inBooks, Magazine, November/December 2012, Politics
Up from Independence
Harry Truman was a classic American striver, and a failure, until politics intervened.
Posted inBooks, Government, Magazine, November/December 2012
Brass Backwards
Thomas Ricks explains the declining competence of America’s senior military commanders.
Posted inBooks, Magazine, November/December 2012
Spread Too Thin
Scholars have discovered that certain everyday food items have played pivotal roles in the history of civilization. Apparently, peanut butter is not one of them.
Posted inBooks, Magazine, November/December 2012
Drone On
It’s probably a matter of when, not if, al-Qaeda in Yemen successfully strikes the U.S. Yet the drone attacks currently keeping the organization at bay are also helping recruit more terrorists. Can you say “no-win situation”?
Posted inBooks, Government, Magazine, November/December 2012
Act of Recovery
Only one national reporter, Michael Grunwald, bothered to take a detailed look at how well the $787 billion stimulus was spent. What he discovered confounds the Beltway conventional wisdom.
Posted inBooks, Education, K-12, Magazine, September/October 2012
First-Rate Temperaments
Liberals don’t want to admit it, and conservatives don’t want to pay for it, but building character—resilience, optimism, perseverance, focus—may be the best way to help poor students succeed.
