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WQ_CovSum08_Sub.Final 6/24/08 5:08 PM Page 2 Th Why Can’t We Build an Affordable House? BY WITOLD RYBCZYNSKI WILSON The Burden of the Humanities Living with BYMicrobesWILFRED M. MCCLAY By Joel L. Swerdlow The WILSON QUARTERLY and Ari D. Johnson SURVEYING THE WORLD OF IDEAS Summer Camp QUARTERLY BY JIM RASENBERGER The Traffic Guru BY TOM VANDERBILT SAVING THE WORLD * S 2008 V lSaving 32 N 3 the World *Some restrictions apply G. PASCAL ZACHARY, HOLLY YEAGER, SUMMER 2008 $6.95 MATTHEW CONNELLY, JOHN R. MILLER Understand the Fun and Beauty in Mathematical Concepts Discover How to Think Precisely, Decisively, and Creatively in 24 Fascinating Lectures umans have been having fun and We’ve been doing this since 1990, pro- games with mathematics for thou- ducing more than 3,000 hours of material Hsands of years. Along the way, in modern and ancient history, philoso- they’ve discovered the amazing utility of phy, literature, fine arts, the sciences, and this field—in science, engineering, finance, mathematics for intelligent, engaged, adult games of chance, and many other aspects lifelong learners. If a course is ever less than of life. completely satisfying, you may exchange it Masterfile for another, or we will refund your money Join Professor Arthur T. Benjamin to © experience The Joy of Mathematics in promptly. topics from a new perspective—combinato- Lecture Titles this course of 24 half-hour lectures. He is rics—and mathematical games, providing a nationally renowned for feats of mental fun entry into subjects that are often taught 1. The Joy of Math—The Big Picture calculation performed before audiences at in a lackluster way. 2. The Joy of Numbers schools, theaters, museums, conferences, 3. The Joy of Primes and other venues, and he shows you that Dr. Benjamin assumes you have no 4. The Joy of Counting there are simple tricks that allow anyone to more than a distant memory of high school 5. The Joy of Fibonacci Numbers look like a “mathemagician.” math. He believes that it is his job to fan 6. The Joy of Algebra those embers into a burning interest in the 7. The Joy of Higher Algebra Professor Benjamin has another goal subject he loves so much—and in which he 8. The Joy of Algebra Made Visual in this course: Throughout the lectures, he takes such exquisite joy. 9. The Joy of 9 shows how everything in mathematics is 10. The Joy of Proofs connected—how the beautiful and often About Your Professor Arthur T. Benjamin is Professor of Math- 11. The Joy of Geometry imposing discipline that has given us algebra, 12. The Joy of Pi geometry, calculus, probability, and so much ematics at Harvey Mudd College, where he has taught since 1989. He earned a Ph.D. in 13. The Joy of Trigonometry else is based on nothing more than fooling 14. The Joy of the Imaginary Number i around with numbers. Mathematical Sciences from Johns Hopkins University. The Mathematical Association of 15. The Joy of the Number e Have You Forgotten Math? America honored him with national awards 16. The Joy of Infinity Worry Not! for distinguished teachingin 1999 and 2000 17. The Joy of Infinite Series Professor Benjamin gives his presenta- and named him the George Pólya Lecturer 18. The Joy of Differential Calculus tion on the number 9 in—what else?— for 2006–08. 19. The Joy of Approximating Lecture 9. Other lectures are devoted to with Calculus pi, the imaginary number i, the transcen- About The Teaching Company 20. The Joy of Integral Calculus dental number e, and infinity. These num- We review hundreds of top-rated pro- 21. The Joy of Pascal’s Triangle bers are gateways to intriguing realms of fessors from America’s best colleges and 22. The Joy of Probability mathematics, which you explore under Dr. universities each year. From this extraor- 23. The Joy of Mathematical Games Benjamin’s enthusiastic guidance. dinary group, we choose only those rated 24. The Joy of Mathematical Magic He also introduces you to prime num- highest by panels of our customers. Fewer bers, Fibonacci numbers, and infinite series. than 10% of these world-class scholar- And you investigate the powerful tech- teachers are selected to make The Great niques for manipulating numbers using Courses®. algebra, geometry, trigonometry, calculus, S AVE $185! and probability in lectures that may hark back to subjects you studied in high school OFFER GOOD UNTIL OCTOBER 13, 2008 and college. 1-800-TEACH-12 (1-800-832-2412) Special offer is available online at A Math Course Designed for You Fax: 703-378-3819 www.TEACH12.com/1wq You will find Dr. Benjamin’s introduc- tion to these fields both a useful refresher The Charge my credit card: and a bird’s-eye view of the most important Great Courses® n n n n THE TEACHING COMPANY ® areas of mathematics. He approaches these 4151 Lafayette Center Drive, Suite 100 Chantilly, VA 20151-1232 About Our Sale Price Policy Account Number Exp. Date Priority Code 29005 Why is the sale price for this course so Signature much lower than its standard price? Every Please send me The Joy of Mathematics, Name (please print) course we make goes on sale at least once a which consists of twenty-four 30-minute year. Producing large quantities of only the lectures plus Course Guidebooks. Mailing Address sale courses keeps costs down and allows n us to pass the savings on to you. This also DVD $69.95 (std. price $254.95) SAVE $185! City/State/ZIP enables us to fill your order immediately: plus $10 shipping, processing, and Lifetime Satisfaction Guarantee Phone (If we have questions regarding your order—required for international orders) 99% of all orders placed by 2 pm eastern n Check or Money Order Enclosed n time ship that same day. Order before * Non-U.S. Orders: Additional shipping charges apply. FREE CATALOG. Please send me a free copy of your current catalog (no purchase necessary). October 13, 2008, to receive these savings. For more details, call us or visit the FAQ page on our website. ** Virginia residents please add 5% sales tax. Special offer is available online at www.TEACH12.com/1wq Offer Good Through: October 13, 2008 The WILSON QUARTERLY Summer 2008 volume xxxii, number 3 The Wilson Quarterly Published by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars FEATURES www.wilsonquarterly.com 50 COVER STORY 20 Happy Campers 43 SAVING THE WORLD* By Jim Rasenberger | Sending kids off to woodsy *Some restrictions apply summer camps is a venerable American tradition. In our high-tech, citified times, it’s also a rather Never has the humanitarian impulse been bizarre one. stronger. From Darfur to Myanmar, every crisis elicits global compassion and offers of 26 The Traffic Guru assistance. But while today’s many eager help- By Tom Vanderbilt | Hans Monderman, a Dutch ing hands are accomplishing a great deal, they traffic engineer with a penchant for quoting must move with care, for even the most high- Proust, sought to toss out the rules of the road and minded aid can sometimes do a lot of harm. replace them with common sense. Humanitarian Dilemmas | By G. Pascal Zachary Call It Slavery | By John R. Miller 34 The Burden of the Humanities The New Face of Global Giving |By Holly Yeager By Wilfred M. McClay | The latest postmodernist Controlling Passions | By Matthew Connelly riff is that the humanities are about as irrelevant to “the real world” as philistines always said. In fact, we need the humanities more than ever. 16 Why Can’t We Build an Affordable House? By Witold Rybczynski | Smaller houses on ON THE COVER: A young victim of the Nargis cyclone awaits aid at a camp in Myanmar’s Irrawaddy delta, May 2008 (UN Photo/Evan Schneider). smaller lots seems like one possible solution to the The views expressed herein are not necessarily those of the Woodrow housing crisis. Here’s what stands in the way. Wilson International Center for Scholars. 2 Wilson Quarterly ■ Summer 2008 DEPARTMENTS 14 EDITOR’S COMMENT Blood for Liberty, from The Review 101 Castles, Battles, and of Politics Bombs: How Economics 16 LETTERS Explains Military History. 81 RELIGION & PHILOSOPHY 18 FROM THE CENTER By Jurgen Brauer and Hubert Nietzsche and the Nazis, from van Tuyll 12 FINDINGS Journal of Contemporary History The Horse, The Wheel, and Language: 82 SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY How Bronze-Age IN ESSENCE Dad’s Biological Clock, from Riders From the Eurasian Steppes our survey of notable Science News Shaped the Modern World. articles from other By David W. Anthony journals and magazines Better Living Through Chemistry, Reviewed by Martin Walker from Kennedy Institute of Ethics 67 POLITICS & GOVERNMENT Journal 102 Wallace Stegner and The Death of Mercy, from Harvard the American West. Earth Exceptionalism, from Law Review By Philip L. Fradkin Technology Review The Rise of the Donor Class, Reviewed by A. J. Loftin from American Journal of Political 85 ARTS & LETTERS 103 Allan Kaprow—Art as Life. Science Yoknapatawpha Diplomacy, from Edited by Eva Meyer-Hermann, New Directions in Pork, The Mississippi Quarterly Andrew Perchuk, and Stephanie from Presidential Studies Quarterly Imperial Edifice, from Rosenthal The Daughters Vote, from The The American Interest Reviewed by Andrew Starner American Economic Review 87 OTHER NATIONS 105 From Higher Aims to Hired 70 FOREIGN POLICY & DEFENSE Spain’s Memory Wars, from World Hands: The Social Transform- Unmasking the Surge, from Policy Journal and The Annals ation of American Business Foreign Affairs Cultural Learnings of Kazakhstan, Schools and the Unfulfilled from Slavic Review Promise of Management as a Dictator Regret, from Middle East Profession.