Walter Lippmann is arguably the most influential journalist in American history. From the time of Woodrow Wilson to the time of Lyndon Johnson, what Walter Lippmann said mattered. His word was valued because of his exceptional capacity for analysis, and because he had the rare ability to make complex ideas and problems manageable and understandable. Lippmann combined the practical and the theoretical and saw them as inseparable. He savored the life of the mind and relished the arena of politics. He was political philosopher, social commentator, political advisor, and activist-intellectual. As...

Childhood in America has changed, and not for the better. From daycare for babies, to the exhausting array of activities for children, to the storm of lurid and violent television shows now deemed appropriate for the young, to the expectation that teenagers build resumes, childhood has been thoroughly redefi ned. Anne R. Pierce argues that this radical redefi nition has been embraced with remarkably little discussion about what children, by nature, need.