For decades now, academic historians have been telling us the same thing: John Fitzgerald Kennedy was a good president, but not a great one. In 13 polls conducted between 1982 and 2011, the youngest ...

The past few years haven't been kind to foreign policy idealism--the belief that when authoritarian states mistreat their own people, it is a matter of concern for all of us. We idealists can largely ...

Warning: This graphic requires JavaScript. Please enable JavaScript for the best experience. In Philip Bump’s March 13 online column, “A quarter-century ago, we ...

The apartment where I work overlooks a small, alternative high school in Boulder, Colorado. I look out onto the football field and see a young woman flip her hair to the side. Even her roots shine.

Americans are sickened of an “idealism that is oblique, confusing, dishonest, and ferocious,” as H.L. Mencken wrote a hundred years ago. Though Mencken was condemning President Woodrow Wilson, the ...

As the presidential race enters the final stretch, politicians are recycling the usual scams to make people believe this election will be different. At last week’s Democratic National Convention, ...