Books

Human beings are clever, bigheaded animals that have proved very formidable against predators like the now-extinct woolly mammoth and the near-extinct Bengal tiger. But we humans, particularly we modern humans, are also strangely vulnerable: fleshy, pudgy, and almost entirely bereft of natural defenses, such as thick outer shells, tusks, or sharp claws. Moreover, our gangly, awkward, injury-prone bodies are not particularly good at getting from place to place. Chimpanzees can at least swing from tree to tree — when was the last time you saw a… more

In their smart and fun new book, Grand New Party, Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam urge Republicans to spend trillions of dollars on policies to shore up working-class families. Several critics have pointed out that the Republican Party will likely remain much more interested in spending trillions of dollars on tax breaks for rich people. What's been less noticed is that Democrats could easily adopt much of the family agenda Douthat and Salam propose--and that, more than his opponent, Barack… more

...Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam, a pair of conservative authors decades younger than Gingrich and Norquist, argue in their new, much-hyped book Grand New Party that the time has come to "move beyond the Reagan legacy and the mindset of the current Republican power structure." They suggest plenty of proposals that many progressives would support, including a fairly ambitious and expensive national health-care plan, subsidies for entry-level jobs and more investment in infrastructure.

But while Douthat and Salam deserve credit for alerting fellow conservatives to the perils… more

Bill Clinton desperately wanted a pithy slogan to encapsulate his foreign policy. But nothing worked. “Post cold-war era” was uninspiring. “Democratic enlargement” sounded like an unwelcome medical condition. “Age of hope” was too like the title of a New Age album. “We can litanize and analyze all we want, but until people can say it in a phrase, we’re sunk,” he snapped at his advisers in the fall of 1994.

The president never succeeded. “Containment” of the Soviet Union described policy through the Cold War, helping… more

This event has been postponed until further notice. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you.Please join us for a conversation with Derek Chollet, whose new book, America Between the Wars, examines the bureaucratic battles, ideological confusion, and policy paralysis that defined the period between the Cold War and The War on Terror.

On Thursday, July 31, 2008, the New America Foundation hosted Sidney Blumenthal, Senior Adviser to Senator Hillary Clinton and Senior Fellow at the NYU Center on Law and Security, to discuss his new book, The Strange Death of Republican America: Chronicles of a Collapsing Party. He was joined by New America’s Steve Clemons, Director of the American Strategy Program, and Michael Lind, Senior Whitehead Fellow. An MP3 audio recording can be downloaded below, while video is available at right. more

...Much-discussed and deservedly praised, Grand New Party by Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam paints a grim picture of working-class prospects, both economically and socially, under prevailing circumstances.

Instead of being a society where anybody can "make it," Douthat and Salam describe the United States as increasingly becoming an "inherited meritocracy" where the wealthy and well-educated get more so and those without education and skills get left behind and face a life of stress and insecurity... LINK

On Thursday, July 17, the New America Foundation’s Next Social Contract Initiative hosted a panel discussion for Grand New Party: How Republican’s Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream by Ross Douthat, Senior Editor of The Atlantic and Reihan Salam, a Fellow at New America and Associate Editor of The Atlantic. On the panel, along with the authors, were Frank Micciche from New America; Ramesh Ponnuru, Senior Editor of the National Review; and Noam Scheiber,… more

Among the things I admire most about Barack Obama is the way that he’s able, without sounding wishy-washy, to capture issues in their full complexity – to explain them not in the obtuse terms typical of so many politicians but in a manner that recognizes nuance, that allows for shades of gray.

It’s too bad that the same can’t be said of John R. Talbott’s Obamanomics: How Bottom-Up Economic Prosperity Will Replace Trickle-Down Economics. Instead, much of it presents an overly simple, cartoonish view of… more

One of the more infamous adages to come from the Vietnam War said that, in waging counterinsurgency in the Vietnamese brush, American policy was to "burn the village to save the village," from communism. This sentiment did not die with Vietnam, however, and has found a clear place in the Bush administration's regard to traditional civil liberties, as described by New Yorker reporter Jane Mayer at the New America Foundation on July 15. An MP3 audio recording can be downloaded… more