The 2006 Burning Man festival kicked off last night in Nevada’s Black Rock desert. In a story today, ABC News described the event variously as “the Woodstock of Generation X,” a “weeklong party for iPod nerds and punk-rock pixies,” and “a massive drug-fueled orgy of the senses.” (Click here for story.) For the record, Burning Man is [...]

Cultural critic Todd Gitlin’s latest essay collection, Intellectuals and the Flag, takes the attacks of September 11 as a point of departure for raising difficult questions about political authority, patriotism, civic engagement, and the role of intellectuals in American public life. My review of the book appears in the new issue of the Journal of Politics. An excerpt: Todd [...]