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Philosophy

Commentary

Drone Strikes and Just War

The argument that new technology demands new rules of war is as timeworn as it is unpersuasive.

Tehran's Man in Baghdad

Iraq's Sistani and Iran's Khamenei can't reign forever. Meet the man who could change the Middle East.

The Delusion of an Arab World

The toxic remnants of a negationalist Arab nationalism.

Essays

Evangelists of Democracy

Radicals of the democracy-promotion movement embody the very thing they are fighting against—a closed-minded conviction that they represent the one true path for all societies and thus possess a monopoly on social, ethical and political truth.

All Gandhi's Children

With the most diverse society in the world, India can serve as a model to the West in its struggles to reconcile liberal democracy with Islam.

Finding Forster

The antiliberal defenders of civilization—resisting the Ground Zero mosque—are wrong. Liberalism still offers the best hope for combating extremism.

Conservative Nation

Declarations of conservatism's demise after the 2008 election were greatly exaggerated. As the opposition, American conservatives are in their element—can they draw upon their intellectual tradition to solve what ails America?

The Struggle for Democracy

The promotion of democracy is the centerpiece of Bush's foreign policy, but the president has yet to define democracy.

What Hobbes Really Said

Life in the state of nature may be "nasty, brutish and short," but states are not people, and Hobbes is not the ultra-realist he is made out to be.

Blogs

The Associated Press and the Metaphysics of Illegal Immigration

Is there such a thing as an illegal immigrant?

Hungary and the Reversibility of Liberal Democracy

Hungary is steadily backing away from its democratic principles. Is the United States next?

Books & Reviews

Lest Ye Be Judged

Enraged bloggers and grandstanding politicians alike denounce the Koran as a glorified terrorist manifesto. Philip Jenkins’s new tome challenges this simplistic logic, analyzing the Bible’s equally—and often shockingly—bloodthirsty passages.

Introducing Mr. Trevor-Roper

For the great historian Hugh Trevor-Roper—whose poison pen spared no ego and whose toxic overconfidence relegated him to a perpetual almost-ran—refusing to become the false prophet of a grand new theory of history was his greatest triumph.

Mr. Brooks's Miracle Elixir

The Social Animal is an instruction manual for politicians, the chief virtue of which is that it is practically useless. Faced with geopolitical and economic upheaval, the New York Times columnist offers a reassuring refuge from reality.

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May 24, 2013