"The rhetorical triumph of the ideal of democracy is being accompanied by the practical eclipse of democratic practices."

In film scholar Noah Isenberg C’89’s engaging investigation of “Hollywood’s Most Beloved Movie,” the lives of the émigré actors who made up most of the cast share the spotlight with the famous love triangle and wartime call to arms. Their stories also echo forward to our own era’s debates over the treatment of refugees and immigration policy.[...]

Simon Patten, who led the Wharton School during the Progressive Era, was a pioneer of the economics of abundance, theorist of the second industrial revolution, and intellectual godfather of the New Deal. His descent into obscurity poses provocative questions about how the field has evolved.[...]

Richard Berk designs computer algorithms that predict crime. As courts and cops increasingly use his and similar tools to shape everything from parole decisions to street policing, Berk has a warning: accuracy comes at the cost of fairness, and citizens must decide where justice lies. [...]