Features

The American public may think that Clinton-era lawsuits reined in Big Tobacco. After all, settlements with the industry have resulted in $240 billion for state governments and a stream of ads about the hazards of cigarettes. But the Marlboro Man and his compadres still ride roughshod over public-health policy around the world. In the past […]

After Progress: American Social Reform and European Socialism in the Twentieth Century, Norman Birnbaum. Oxford University Press, 432 pages, $35.00. Many of those on the notoriously parochial American left have only a superficial understanding of the history of social movements in other countries. For these people (and you know who you are), Norman Birnbaum’s superb […]

Indian Gaming: Tribal Sovereignty and American Politics, W. Dale Mason. University of Oklahoma Press, 330 pages, $29.95. The Revenge of the Pequots: How a Small Native American Tribe Created the World’s Most Profitable Casino, Kim Isaac Eisler. Simon and Schuster, 267 pages, $25.00. Without Reservation: The Making of America’s Most Powerful Indian Tribe and Foxwoods, […]

The charge that politics has become indistinguishable from entertainment–and that partly for this reason we now have in office a spoiled frat boy with not much upstairs–is overstated and not especially new. Such notions are not entirely wrong, though, and to see them translated literally into television programming, as they are on Comedy Central’s new […]

Physicians have always had a symbiotic relationship with Hollywood. From Lew Ayres in the 1930s Dr. Kildare films to Andre Braugher in Gideon’s Crossing and Melina Kanakaredes in Providence, movie studios and TV networks have enlisted the support of individual doctors and their organizations to provide story ideas, expert advice, and, more recently, high-tech medical […]

Nobody is happy with the nation’s nursing homes. Too many patients are receiving substandard care. Workers, particularly nurse’s aides who provide the majority of direct care, suffer from low wages, lack of benefits, understaffing, inadequate training, and limited career opportunities. Families are often appalled at how their loved ones are treated. Owners and managers struggle […]

When it comes to the fantasy novels of J.R.R. Tolkien, it is a truism that critics either love the books or hate them: Concerning Middle Earth, there is no middle ground. Such has been the case ever since Tolkien, an Oxford philologist, first published his epic novel The Lord of the Rings in three volumes […]