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.”

1789 | New York City

To Whom It May Concern

The naming of the president.More

1910 | New York City

Wherein Man Has Failed

The fetish of women’s suffrage.More

c. 330 BC | Athens

True to Form

Aristotle defines the types of government.More

Charts & Graphs

Winds of Change

The rise and fall of political advisers.

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Photograph of American novelist and writer Flannery O’Connor.

Photograph of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya.

Photograph of American historian Robert Caro.

Lewis Lapham at his desk

Black and white photograph of a young Mark Twain with dark hair.

Photograph of American writer Ralph Ellison.

Painted portrait of former American first lady Abigail Adams.

I am invariably of the politics of the people at whose table I sit, or beneath whose roof I sleep.

—George Borrow, 1843

Depiction of Greek philosopher Plato.

Black and white photograph of American author Edith Wharton.

Plato & Edith Wharton

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