Justice Barrett Makes Her Case

Four days before the presidential election in November 2016, the Supreme Court held a beautiful ceremony in memory of Justice Antonin Scalia. The event honored Scalia the man and Scalia the jurist. But for me a deep sadness pervaded it. Not only was my old boss gone, but his jurisprudential legacy would soon be erased. Everyone knew that Hillary Clinton would trounce Donald Trump on Election Day. Scalia's seat, which Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell had kept open since his death in February, would soon be filled, perhaps by Barack Obama's nominee Merrick Garland, perhaps by a more progressive pick by Hillary. Either way, the Court would have a new and emboldened liberal majority that would no longer have to depend on Justice Anthony Kennedy to wreak havoc on the Constitution.

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Clueless Coconut: Kamala Harris Has No Idea Why She Lost

Revisiting what has been, still burdened by what never was. Kamala Harris has no idea what she's doing. She demonstrated as much from the moment she entered the 2020 Democratic primary, throughout her tenure as vice president, and on numerous occasions during her 107-day campaign for president. Her postelection memoir, 107 Days, attempts to explain why Donald Trump bested her in a high-stakes contest to decide the future of American democracy and recount what she "saw, experienced, and learned" in the process.

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In Pursuit of Das Boot

In a world filled with hundreds, if not thousands of books on the naval history of World War II, Alexander Rose's Phantom Fleet might seem like just another voice in a massive chorus, but that perception would be wrong.

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Wired In

A trained computational biologist—one who discovers biological truths through simulations rather than physical experiments—Arbesman volunteers as our guide. With software now embedded in our daily routines, he rests uneasily knowing that only the technologically savvy wield all creative potential. He envisions a world in which everyone possesses this power. Thanks to recent advances in generative artificial intelligence, such as ChatGPT, that vision is more plausible than ever.

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The Costs of Keeping Kosher

It was one small meal for Jews, but a political leap forward for Jewish history. In 1788, Philadelphia hosted a parade celebrating Pennsylvania's ratification of the Constitution, and the procession was followed by a feast. An eyewitness reported that "there was a number of long tables loaded with all kinds of provisions, with a separate table for the Jews, who could not partake of the meals from the other tables." It is difficult to find a prior civic celebration in Jewish diaspora history that is its like. In a single setting, Jews were embraced as equals by their fellow Philadelphians, as full partners in the nascent constitutional republic, while at the same time feeling entirely able to observe the dietary habits that set them apart.

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How Apple Turned China Into a Tech Behemoth

In Apple in China, Patrick McGee, a veteran Financial Times journalist, provides a sobering and meticulous account of how Apple's pursuit of scale and profit helped fuel the meteoric rise of China's techno-industrial power. Ultimately, Apple outsourced not just production, but national leverage.

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Finding Frank Meyer

Frank Meyer was a man of great paradoxes. He began his adult life in the shadow of the Great Depression, a card-carrying Communist, but would die in 1972 a passionate anti-Communist and conservative intellectual. Meyer's biographer, Daniel J. Flynn, a fellow at the Hoover Institution, describes him as a "study in contradictions and an exploder of stereotypes."

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A Real Stand-Up Guy

“I don’t get no respect,” said Rodney Dangerfield, thousands of times. It was one of the great taglines in show-business history. It was the basis of his act—the denial of respect. Whatever his protestations, Rodney was one of the most beloved entertainers of the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s.

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The Birth of Cool

When Elmore Leonard died in 2013, he was the undisputed king of crime fiction. Writers and celebrities like Walker Percy, Nora Ephron, Clint Eastwood, Donald Fagen, Stephen King, Martin Amis, Ann Beattie, and George F. Will celebrated his novels. His best-selling novels—full of double-crosses, dirty-dealing, uptight stooges, smooth antiheroes, plot twists, and deadpan dialogue—inspired some […]

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Finding Meaning in Our Menus

A framed menu from the Chanticleer, circa 1987, hangs on my kitchen wall. Jean-Charles Berruet was then chef and co-propriétaire of the restaurant and inn, as charming and rose-trellised as you might imagine, set in the Nantucket village of ’Sconset. I had attributed the impulse to ask for it all those years ago to capturing the swoon of that visit’s fine dining.

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