Sublime

His change in plans, the decision to stay, came one year after his arrival, in September 1847, when he was offered the chair of natural history at the Lawrence Scientific School, an institution newly established at Harvard partly for the purpose of keeping him in the United States.

Depuis plus d’une dizaine d’années, je fais des recherches, des voyages et des livres pour comprendre, approfondir et rénover une philosophie politique : le libéralisme. Négligé et caricaturé dans le débat public, confondu avec le néolibéralisme, réduit à son versant économique, revendiqué par des hommes d’argent qui ne lui font pas honneur, le lib

the government protects sugar, and the government subsidizes corn. As a result, more foods get made with high-fructose corn syrup, and more cattle get fed corn, meaning more cattle get fed antibiotics. The quantity of high-fructose corn syrup thus goes up in our diet, and the prevalence of dangerous bacteria goes up as well. And in complicated ways

As houses grew in size, it became normal to take in boarders, even in middle-class areas; boarding, indeed, became the standard housing for single people in cities, and they were often treated almost as family members. Farmhouses followed similar designs—the farmer complaining that his house was “bigger than the barn” was a stock joke.

Rural citizens lived alongside industry for generations, taking jobs and small payouts for mineral leases. Often, they acquired a sophisticated understanding of property and mineral rights, becoming well versed in the history and value of what lay beneath their feet. This arrangement also helped people remain on their land long after farming was pr

The libertarians were different. They slipped more easily into the American stream. In their insistence on freedom they could claim to be descendants of Locke, Jefferson, and the classical liberal tradition. Some of them interpreted the Constitution as a libertarian document for individual and states rights under a limited federal government, not a

By the time Palin talked about “the real America,” it was in precipitous decline. The region where she spoke, the North Carolina Piedmont, had lost its three economic mainstays—tobacco, textiles, and furniture making—in a single decade. Local people blamed NAFTA, multinational corporations, and big government. Idle tobacco farmers who had owned and