History Versus Hagiography

Robert Ventresca

History Versus Hagiography
Italian Police Commissioner Giovanni De Gennaro (R) receives a certificate of honor and a medal from Yad Yashem Chairman Shevach Weiss, at a ceremony to honor late Italian police chief Giovanni Palatucci, 10 February 2005. (GALI TIBBON/AFP/Getty Images)
In the case of Giovanni Palatucci, ideological questions are overshadowing objective research.
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Robert A. Ventresca is Professor of History at King’s University College at Western University in London, Ontario, Canada. He is the author most recently of Soldier of Christ: The Life of Pope Pius XII (The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2013).

Nov 04

Can Corporations Be Good Citizens?

Kent Greenfield

Can Corporations Be Good Citizens?
Activists urge the Supreme Court to overturn Citizens United, February, 2012. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
A debate is opening up on the left over the role of firms as social and political actors.
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Kent Greenfield, a professor at Boston College Law School, is the author most recently of The Myth of Choice: Personal Responsibility in a World of Limits (Yale University Press, 2011). You can follow him on Twitter @kentgreenfield1.

Nov 03

An Academic Meets Public Life

Interview with Rush Holt

An Academic Meets Public Life
Rep. Rush Holt, back in the classroom. (credit: Washington office of Rush Holt)
A congressman reflects on his career switch from professor to politician.
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Rep. Rush Holt (D) represents New Jersey’s 12th District and serves on the Committees on Education and the Workforce as well as Energy and Commerce. As one of the only two physicists in Congress, he earned his Ph.D. at NYU and served as Assistant Director of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory from 1989 to 1999.

Nov 03

The Tangled Roots of Polarization

David C.W. Parker

The Tangled Roots of Polarization
Tea Party Rally in Boston, April 2013. (Photo by John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
In the aftermath of the government shutdown, it is time to look at the drivers of our political differences.
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David C. W. Parker is Associate Professor of Political Science at Montana State University. He blogs at Big Sky Politics and is the author of The Power of Money in Congressional Campaigns, 1880-2006 (University of Oklahoma Press, 2008)..

Nov 03

Childhood Intervention and Earnings

Andrew Gelman

Childhood Intervention and Earnings
An intervention from the top: Michelle Obama talks to Head Start students, May, 2010, in Silver Spring, Maryland. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
How much do we trust a new claim that early childhood stimulation raised earnings by 42%?
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Andrew Gelman is Professor of Statistics and Political Science and Director of the Applied Statistics Center at Columbia University. You can follow him on his blog as well as on The Monkey Cage.

Nov 03