Profiles

Scheidel contends that the fall of Rome precipitated the kind of competition-driven innovation that made modernity possible in the first place. Rome’s greatest gift to posterity is that, in disappearing, it made room for the West to rise.

Is the CIA a dastardly menace or a hotbed of horrible mistakes? If Stephen Kinzer’s new book is any indication, the answer is both.

In the 1960s, politicians and bureaucrats had nearly unbounded faith in the ability to plan a nearly perfect society. Things didn't turn out as they had planned.