Queen Elizabeth I, c. 1600. National Portrait Gallery, London.

Queen Elizabeth I, c. 1600. National Portrait Gallery, London.

Politics

Volume V, Number 4 | fall 2012

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Preamble

Feast of Fools

By Lewis H. Lapham

How American democracy became all about the rule of money.

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Official White House portrait of President U.S. Grant, by Henry Ulke, 1875.

Tales of Brave Ulysses

By H.W. Brands

Ulysses S. Grant was overlooked by historians and underestimated by contemporaries. H.W. Brands reevaluates Grant’s presidency.

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Map

Powers That Be

Tale of the tape: monarchy, theocracy, democracy.

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Miscellany

Thirtieth U.S. president Calvin Coolidge, nicknamed “Silent Cal,” once sat next to a woman at a dinner party who reportedly said to him, “I have made a bet, Mr. Coolidge, that I could get more than two words out of you.” To which he replied, “You lose.”

1879 | Hartford, CT

Campaign Promises

Mark Twain announces his candidacy.More

1917 | Petrograd

All Power to the People

The Bolsheviks seize the Winter Palace.More

1526 | Agra

Taste Test

Nobody messes with Babur and gets away with it.More

Charts & Graphs

Ages of Empire

Ages at which rulers assumed power and the lengths of their reigns.

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Photograph of historian Anthony Grafton.

Photograph of Egyptologist Kara Cooney.

Black and white photograph of Friedrich Nietzsche with a huge mustache.

Black and white photograph of American author Edith Wharton.

Depiction of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile.

Photo of stone Aristotle statue face

Painted portrait of second President of the United States John Adams.

Natural rights is simple nonsense: natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense—nonsense upon stilts.

—Jeremy Bentham, c. 1832

Statue of the Persian poet Ferdowsi.

Character from the television series The Wire.

Ferdowsi & Ed Burns and William Zorzi

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