The planet, it appears, is ready for a brand new Voltaire. This one doesnt quite possess the philosophical power of the eighteenth-century French one, but he definitely has a witty, cockeyed viewpoint that the earlier Voltaire lacked.... Read More

A fourteen-year-old from inner-city Chicago becomes a millionaire. The murder of a child inspires her mother to renounce drugs and become an inspirational speaker. An old lady’s gift of one dollar reminds a college student not to take... Read More

Over the past century the percentage of Americans over the age of sixty-five has grown from 3.1 million to 34.5 million. As the baby boomer generation reaches retirement age, those numbers will again skyrocket. “Declining birth rates... Read More

The women’s movement, like all waves of social change, left casualties in its wake. Conservatives decry its neglect of the housewife, while pundits trace the realignment of political parties to white males’ new insecurities. The... Read More

With both amigos laughing riotously “Oh Pancho!” “Oh Cisco!” were the enduring closing lines of each "The Cisco Kid" television show from 1950 to 1956. Starring Duncan Renaldo and Leo Carrillo they were the Don Quixote and Sancha... Read More

No doubt the author invested time and effort into compiling more than 600 pages of information that links actors to television roles they performed from 1950 to 1990. It progresses in alphabetical order from A-Team to Zorro and Son with... Read More

India has long captured the Western imagination. The increased attention given to the world’s most populous democracy and rising economic power has done much to inform outsiders that the subcontinent is about more than abject poverty... Read More

Westerners are bombarded with disturbing pictures of Muslims in news and popular culture. Depictions of slayings, bombings, and disruptions to the Middle East peace process are a daily occurrence. Rarer, but just as unsettling, are... Read More