Politics

The late Southern writer Florence King once lamented that “a cornerstone of Western thought that has vanished without a trace is admiration for ancient Sparta.” There are good reasons why this should be so. Yet in the three decades since she penned those words, there has been a resurgence of “laconomania” at the popular and […]

In the old days — we’re talking about the 2010s here — when you boarded a plane, and glanced with envy or disdain at the passengers sinking into their plush First-Class seats, you were looking at an assembly of road warriors. A traveling salesman might be resting his haunches in seat 2C. Your local congressman […]

BRADDOCK, Pa. — In American politics, when negotiating hard deals that involve high risk and the livelihoods of all involved while requiring great compromise, pain is usually shared unequally. The rarest outcome is for all involved to be grateful. Yet that was the overwhelming sentiment expressed by the local union leaders, steel workers, plant managers, and […]

Novelist Maggie O’Farrell always wanted to write the story of her great-great-grandfather, who lived in Ireland and worked for the Ordinance Survey, Britain’s mapping service, in the 1850s. And now she has.  Her vivid new novel, Land, features a surveyor and his family who are engulfed in the chaos of the era. These were perilous […]

Is a reading comprehension test racist if fewer black people pass it than white people? Is a pushup requirement sexist if fewer women can pass it than men? For decades, employers have faced the impossible task of identifying objective measures to analyze job applicants while also ensuring the demographics of those who pass those tests […]