As I've often said, you can shop online and find whatever you're looking for, but bookstores are where you find what you weren't looking for.

The raw fact is that every successful example of economic development this past century ... has taken place via globalization.

If you had to explain America's economic success with one word, that word would be "education".... Until now, the results of educational neglect have been gradual - a slow-motion erosion of America's relative position. But things are about to get much worse, as the economic crisis ... deals a severe blow to education across the board.... We need to wake up and realize that one of the keys to our nation's historic success is now a wasting asset. Education made America great; neglect of education can reverse the process.

Every once in a while I feel despair over the fate of the planet. If you’ve been following climate science, you know what I mean: the sense that we’re hurtling toward catastrophe but nobody wants to hear about it or do anything to avert it.

The problem isn't that people don't understand how good things are. It's that they know, from personal experience, that things really aren't that good.

Republican candidates had to appeal to their base, which is by and large elderly white people arguing with empty chairs.

America's political landscape is infested with many zombie ideas - beliefs about policy that have been repeatedly refuted with evidence and analysis but refuse to die. The most prominent zombie is the insistence that low taxes on rich people are the key to prosperity.