american academy of arts & sciences spring 2009 Bulletin vol. lxii, no. 3 Page 5 After the 2008 Elections: How Will They Govern? David T. Ellwood, Norman J. Ornstein, and Thomas E. Mann Page 15 Reflecting on the Election and Its Consequences David Brady and Pamela S. Karlan Page 25 The New Pragmatism: Coping with America’s Overwhelming Problems Daniel Yankelovich Page 31 Andrei Sakharov: The Nuclear Legacy Paul M. Doty, Matthew Bunn, František Janouch, Evgeny Miasnikov, and Pavel Podvig inside: The Public Good: The Impact of Information Technology on Society, Page 1 Remembering John Hope Franklin by Walter Dellinger, Page 3 From the Archives, Page 44 Calendar of Events Save the Date Induction Weekend Contents Saturday, October 10, 2009 News 2009 Induction Ceremony–Cambridge Is Information Technology Sunday, a Public Good? 1 October 11, 2009 Remembering John Hope Franklin 3 Sunday Symposium–Cambridge Academy Meetings For information and reservations, contact the Events Of½ce (phone: 617-576-5032; email: [email protected]). After the 2008 Elections: How Will They Govern? David T. Ellwood, Norman J. Ornstein, and Thomas E. Mann 5 Reflecting on the Election and Its Consequences David Brady and Pamela S. Karlan 15 The New Pragmatism: Coping with America’s Overwhelming Problems Daniel Yankelovich 25 Andrei Sakharov: The Nuclear Legacy Paul M. Doty, Matthew Bunn, František Janouch, Evgeny Miasnikov, and Pavel Podvig 31 Noteworthy 42 From the Archives 44 Academy News Is Information Technology a Public Good? lic sphere without the kinds of information that newspapers have supplied. I don’t mean weather reports, but investigative journal- ism–local, national, international.” Participants in a discussion of Alternative Futures for the Internet: Fears and Opti- mism assessed what can and should be done to craft the ideal Internet. David Clark, Senior Research Scientist at the mit Com- puter Science and Arti½cial Intelligence Laboratory, emphasized that “the Internet is not a ½xed and determined thing. It mu- tates rapidly. As we drive toward the future, there’s more than one possible path and that raises a bunch of vague questions. Can we even predict the eventual implications of ac- tions we take now? Should we assume that the Internet of the future is simply a random phenomenon?” Butler Lampson (Microsoft), Irwin Mark Jacobs (Qualcomm), Vinton Cerf (Google), and John L. Turning to Books, Publishing, and Libraries, Hennessy (Stanford University) Co-Chairman of the Board of Adobe Systems John Warnock noted, “I think electronic li- Digital technology has created unprece- the past and future of computing, communi- braries have a huge opportunity in the future dented changes in the way we live, work, and cations, and the Internet. Cerf commented because you can organize content in very interact with the world and with each other. on the speed with which people embraced unique and personal ways, which you could Its effect is apparent everywhere: President the Internet, especially through social media never think about in book form.” Stanford Obama’s digital campaign recruited 8 mil- sites. “It has been this incredible avalanche University Librarian and Director of Aca- lion volunteers online; more than 200 mil- of shared information,” he said. “The expres- demic Information Resources Michael Kel- lion blogs have been published; Facebook sion ‘information is power’–I think it’s ler suggested that the digitization of objects surpassed 175 million users worldwide; sales wrong. It’s ‘information sharing is power.’” on the Internet has done much to “democ- of iPods topped 180 million; and one in eight ratize learning and intellectual exploration.” The Public couples married in the United States last year In a series of panel discussions, Good: The Impact of Information Technology on Other panels focused on how information met online. At a recent meeting in Mountain Society technology has changed the way people View, California, the Academy convened considered transformations in a wide think about art, new tools and media, and technology pioneers, industry leaders, sci- range of areas, from governance to books, the democratization of craft. entists, and scholars to examine the impact libraries, and art. A session on Information Technology and Democracy examined how –positive and negative, planned and unan- The symposium opened with a memorial technology has changed the way citizens in- ticipated–of information technology on minute for James N. Gray, a Fellow of the teract with government and receive informa- society. Academy who made seminal contributions tion. “The Web has not overcome the strati- to the ½eld of information technology and The symposium featured four Fellows whose ½cation of American politics, as some peo- encouraged the planning of this conference. breakthrough discoveries helped launch the ple had hoped it would,” said Henry Brady, Gray was lost at sea in January 2007. C. Gor- digital revolution. Vinton Cerf, Chief In- Professor of Political Science and Public don Bell, Principal Researcher at Microsoft ternet Evangelist at Google; Irwin Jacobs, Policy at the University of California, Berke- Research, offered personal remarks about Founder of Qualcomm, Inc.; Butler Lamp- ley. Speaking about the demise of newspa- his close collaborator: “Jim is a great friend son, Technical Fellow at Microsoft; and John pers, Joshua Cohen, Professor of Political of computing and a friend of this Academy. Hennessy, computer industry pioneer and Science at Stanford University, observed: He was a legend when we ½rst met in 1994, President of Stanford University, discussed “We can’t have a successful democratic pub- Bulletin of the American Academy Spring 2009 1 Academy News C. Gordon Bell (Microsoft Research) describing an exhibit at the Computer History Museum David Clark (MIT), Hal Varian (Google), Cynthia Dwork (Microsoft), and Jonathan Zittrain (Harvard Law School) and I found we shared the same religion Media), Cynthia Dwork (Microsoft), Ed- Jesse H. Choper, David Clark, Edward about building scalable computers. His re- ward Feigenbaum (Stanford University), Feigenbaum, Pat Hanrahan, John Hennessy, search was driven by the quest for fundamen- Edward W. Felten (Princeton University), John Hollar, and Edward Lazowska–and tal understanding yet also inspired by a Charles Geschke (Adobe Systems, Inc.), to Microsoft, Google, and the Computer search for practical applications. He built Daniel Goroff (Sloan Foundation), Pat History Museum for hosting the conference. systems that are in use today, including on- Hanrahan (Stanford University), John Audio and video coverage of the program line transaction systems that do our banking Hollar (Computer History Museum), Ed- is available on the Academy’s website at and reserve our airline tickets, and more re- ward Lazowska (University of Washing- www. amacad.org/audio/mountain/moun- cent systems like Google Earth, Microsoft ton), Donald Lindberg (National Library of tain.aspx. The panel discussions will appear Virtual Earth, and the World-Wide Tele- Medicine), Carl Rosendahl (Paci½c Data in a forthcoming publication. scope.” Images), Hal Varian (Google), and Jonathan Zittrain (Harvard Law School). The more than twenty presenters at the meeting included Jonathan Berger (Stan- The Academy is grateful to the members of ford University), Dale Dougherty (Maker the Planning Committee–C. Gordon Bell, 2 Bulletin of the American Academy Spring 2009 Academy Meetings Remembering John Hope Franklin by Walter Dellinger John Hope Franklin, who died in March at times, even now, while enjoying a symphony the age of 94, was one of the most remark- or an opera, when I reproach myself for able Americans of the twentieth century. having yielded to the indignity of racial He was the master of the great American segregation.” story of that century, the story of race. John In 2007, the American Academy of Arts and Hope wrote it, he taught it, and he lived it. Sciences joined with the American Philo- For seven years, he and I taught constitu- sophical Society to confer a “Public Good tional history together at Duke University, Award” on John Hope Franklin. In present- and I never ceased to marvel at how he ing the award, I noted that in the founding managed both to embody this history and papers of both the Academy and the Society yet recount it with an extraordinarily can- there are frequent references to “thinkers did honesty. Our students would fall into and doers.” The trajectory of our republic the deepest hush while he recounted his ex- owes much to both kinds of participants in periences researching his epic 1947 work, our national story–those thinkers whose From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African ideas laid the foundation for our most im- Americans (reprinted scores of times since, portant democratic institutions; and those and still widely read), in segregated South- doers who took aspirational concepts and ern state libraries and Southern university made them concrete. John Hope Franklin libraries. He would describe the various Jim was one of those rare individuals whose John Hope Franklin Crow rules he was required to navigate–a prodigious talents manifest themselves as separate table from white patrons, a prohi- both. bition on being waited on by white female He worked on a crucial brief for Brown v. librarians, and similar indignities–without Board of Education, he marched in Selma, he a trace of bitterness. lectured all over the world, and he taught all After the acclaim for From Slavery to Freedom of America to see through his uncompromis- and his other writings brought him a place ing eye. But it was not just what he did, but on the Howard University faculty while he how he did it that marked his greatness. was still in his 30s, John Hope thought he had John Hope somehow combined a tough and achieved the ½nal academic appointment of uncompromising militancy with the courtly his life. He believed that a scholar who was a manner of an old-school Southern gentle- man of color could aspire to teach nowhere man.