Week of August 20, 2012

Up Front

Nine Weird Facts About Presidential Conventions HNN Staff

Why Are Americans So Confused? Ira Chernus's MythicAmerica

News at Home

Todd Akin and Paul Ryan are American Salafis Juan Cole

Is Paul Ryan Jack Kemp, Model 2012? Nicole Hemmer

The L-Word: Libertarianism Robert Brent Toplin

Ryan's Hope: A Vice Presidency in the Tradition of Dick Cheney and Joe Biden Timothy Walch

How Does Obama's Personality Stack Up Against FDR's? Andrew M. Obritsch

The 2012 Election: Freedom, Justice, Fairness, and Opportunity Walter G. Moss

News Abroad

Wait Out the War in Syria Daniel Pipes

Impunity at Home, Rendition Abroad Alfred W. McCoy

Why Timbuktu Will Overcome Its Latest Fundamentalist Conquerors Steve Kemper

Historians & History

Niall Ferguson's Newsweek/Daily Beast Cover Story Ignites a Firestorm HNN Staff

Does David Barton's Flameout Make This a Scopes Moment for American History? Adam Laats

Rome: The Origin of Empire Greg Woolf

Blogs

In Search of New Mythology (Part One) Ira Chernus's MythicAmerica

In Search of New Mythology (Part Two) Ira Chernus's MythicAmerica

Culture Watch

A 1950s Harvest Moon Rises Over Tragedies in a Small Texas Town Bruce Chadwick

Judge Seeks Sexual Favors from Young Woman to Save Her Brother. Is this 1604 or 2012? Bruce Chadwick

Tweets and Twitters: A Mormon Runs for President Bruce Chadwick

Summer, 1938: Parody of The Sound of Music Hits All the Right Notes Bruce Chadwick

Books

Review of Clint Hill's and Lisa McCubbin's Mrs. Kennedy and Me: An Intimate Memoir Vaughn Davis Bornet

Review of Kevin Levin's Remembering the Battle of the Crater: War as Murder Jim Cullen