I TheUnne~i~i~ prrJsof~~-~CL~S~ ExEcrrrrvESEcRETs Covert Action and the Presidency William J. Daugherty "Daugherty has done us all a tremendous service by attempting to rescue the Agency from the myths, both well-meaning and malevolent, that shape our understanding of it....This book ought to dispel some of the fog that obscures our understanding of the C.I.A."--Mark Bowden, from the foreword $32.50 cloth No END IN SIGHT The Continuing Menace of Nuclear Proliferation Nathan E. Busch .1~J-ll~C7ES 116:~T I:~;)N "The most comprehensive study of global nuclear safety and security currently availablei'--Peter Lavoy %40.00 cloth THE OBLIGATION OF ENIPIRE United States' Grand Strategy for a New Century Edited by James J. Hentz "An edited volume that policy makers, scholars, pundits, and the interested public should read.... Combines the broad conceptual reach of grand strategy and the breadth and depth of regional expertise for a unique picture of the challenges we face('--Gen. Anthony C. Zinni, USMC, (Ret.) $35.00 cloth W,sua~ilii Pursuing the American Dream AIllellCaIl Dream Opportunity and Exclusion Over Four Centuries Cal Jillson "Everyone knows abbur the American dream---but no one has ever exPlored it quite like Jillson in this bold, luminous, smart, and splendid bool<."--James A. Morone, author of HelljilL·Nnlioll 352 pages, 29 photographs, Cloth $34.95 ~~~:sse::,:'lilu~I: :I~ DefiningAmericans The Presidency and National Identity Mary E. Stuckey "Stuclte)i's bold and insigh~ful hook deconstructs the rhetoric through I~ whichpresidents have excluded and evenvilified so~ne Americans even as rhe)i ha\ie included and acclaimed others. Through fascinating case studies of some of our best and worst presideuts, SLuclteycoml,els us to confront the powerful parr that all have Played in defining who we are."--Bruce Miroff, author of Icolls of Dellzocl-ncy: Amel-ical~ Lendel-s ns nel~oes, Al·istocl-nts, Dissenlel-s, ccnd Del,locl·nts 432 pages, Cloth $35.00 University Press of Kansas 2501 Bob Billings Parkway · Lawrence KS 66049 Phone 785-864-4154 · Fax 785-864-4586 www.kansaspress.ku.edu WQ WQAUTUMN 2004 THE WILSON QUARTERLY Published by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars wilsonquarterly.com 13 THE ATLANTIC WIDENS by T. R. Reid An American abroad counts the ways that Europeans disdain the United States and explains how anti-American sentiment is fostering a new sense of European identity. 24 LIVING MEMORY by Christopher Clausen Our sense of history is shaped by living links to the past, and when those links disappear, something irreplaceable is lost. 31 POLITICS AS WAR Alan Wolfe • Christopher Hitchens • Donald R. Wolfensberger The approaching election finds American politics in a more polarized state than at any other time in many decades. This condition did not appear overnight, and, as our authors argue, it’s not likely to vanish on November 2. 60 EVOLUTION’S NEW LOOK by Michael L. Arnold and Edward J. Larson The eruption of West Nile virus, the rise of HIV/AIDS, and the beauty of the Abbeville Red iris are all natural phenomena that can’t readily be explained in terms of the reigning neo-Darwinian view of how species evolve. 74 WASHINGTON, DU BOIS, AND THE BLACK FUTURE by Mark Bauerlein At the turn of the 20th century, before he became one of America’s leading African American intellectuals and civil rights advocates, W. E. B. Du Bois had an unusual relationship with his towering predecessor, Booker T. Washington. departments 2 EDITOR’S COMMENT 111 CURRENT BOOKS Phyllis Rose 4 CORRESPONDENCE on the art of the essay 10 FINDINGS Reviews by Joanna Scott, Bruce Che Chic Bawer, Theodore Dalrymple, The Watson Conundrum Michelle Nijhuis, Marty Linsky, The Great Fitzgerald Gerald N. Callahan, Elizabeth Willis, Highway Hubris Gregory H. Stanton, and others 87 THE PERIODICAL OBSERVER 128 PORTRAIT: Uncle Sam The Lost Art of Reading A Model Muslim State? cover: Illustration from Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, Courtesy of the New York Public Library, design by David Herbick. The views expressed herein are not necessarily those of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. USPS 346-670 | Volume XXVIII, Number 4 | Printed in the U.S.A. Editor’s Comment his year’s huge crop of campaign bumper stickers resurrects the nagging quadrennial question: What do people hope to accom- Tplish with these automotive gestures? Here’s a project for the exit- pollsters: Count the voters whose minds were changed on the way to the voting booth by a Volvo for Kerry or a Cadillac for Bush. Bumper stickers have been around for a long time, and they are worthy descendants of a long line of political bric-a-brac that probably stretches back to ancient Athens. But they are also symptomatic of something much more mod- ern, which for lack of a more elegant coinage I’ll call the politicization of almost everything. Bumper stickers are one thing, but now the cars themselves are political statements. Hybrid or conventional? Import or domestic? SUV or compact? As with cars, so with virtually everything else. We live in an age in which what you eat for dinner or watch on television can be seen as a procla- mation of ideological allegiance. No wonder America is politically polarized. It’s not just “lifestyle choices” that have been politicized. Vast areas of national life that were once thought to be remote from the political realm have been dragged into the arena. It’s now expected that the informed American will have an emphatic political position on all sorts of topics that people scarcely thought about before, small subjects like the role in public life of sex, science, or God. The first used to be beneath politics, the others above it, but now all might be said to have offices in Washington. Democracies need good political fights, and many of our current battles need to be waged, but fighting all the time and about everything is sure to be disastrous. Today’s boundless political war is exciting for partisans, but numbing for many others, who seem increasingly inclined to leave the field of battle altogether and let the enthusiasts duke it out. That’s a formula for polarization no single election can undo. Editor: Steven Lagerfeld The Wilson Quarterly (ISSN-0363-3276) is published in Managing Editor: James H. Carman January (Winter), April (Spring), July (Summer), and October Senior Editors: Robert K. Landers, (Autumn) by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for James M. Morris Scholars at One Woodrow Wilson Plaza, 1300 Pennsylvania Literary Editor: Stephen Bates Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20004–3027. Complete arti- Assistant Editor: Sarah L. Courteau cle index available online at wilsonquarterly.com. Subscriptions: Editors at Large: Ann Hulbert, Jay Tolson one year, $24; two years, $43. Air mail outside U.S.: one year, Copy Editor: Vincent Ercolano $39; two years, $73. Single copies mailed upon request: $8; out- Contributing Editors: Martha Bayles, side U.S. and possessions, $10; selected back issues: $8, includ- Linda Colley, Denis Donoghue, Max Holland, ing postage and handling; outside U.S., $10. Periodical postage Stephen Miller, Walter Reich, Alan Ryan, paid at Washington, D.C., and additional mailing offices. All unsolicited manuscripts should be accompanied by a self- Edward Tenner, Charles Townshend, addressed stamped envelope. Members: Send changes of Alan Wolfe, Bertram Wyatt-Brown address and all subscription correspondence with Wilson Researchers: Owen Phillips, Thomas Wolf Quarterly mailing label to Subscriber Service, The Wilson Board of Editorial Advisers: K. Anthony Appiah, Quarterly, P.O. 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E-mail: [email protected]. 2 Wilson Quarterly C o r r e s p o n d e n c e L e t t e rs may be mailed to The Wilson Quarterly, 1300 Pe n n s y l vania Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20004–3027, or sent via facsimile, to (202) 691-4036, or e-mail, to w q@w w i c . s i . e d u . The writer’s telephone number and postal a ddress should be included. For reasons of space, letters are usually edited for publication. Some letters are received in response to the editors’ requests for comment. have different intellectual strengths and pro- Debating the g Factor files that should be taken into account in S cientific interest in the nature of human pedagogy and curriculum, and a belief in intelligence began a century ago, with the pio- several intelligences holds out hope that stu- neering works of Charles Spearman in dents can be reached in different ways and can B r i t ain and Alfred Binet in France. Thei r demonstrate their understa n dings in ways f o l l owe rs created short-answer tests that yield that are substantively appropriate and also a single figure, now called the IQ.