Month: October 2013

The latest on Syria

In the October 2013 issue of the Journal of Democracy, a quintet of articles take a look at the "Arab Spring." The essays take on over-arching issues with the push for democracy in the region as well as updates on individual issues in specific countries. Dr. Steven Heydemann, a senior adviser for Middle East Initiatives at the…

Explaining the Affordable Care Act in 800 Words

guest post by Peter L. Beilenson, M.D., M.P.H. October 1, 2013 was probably the most significant day in American health care policy since the inauguration of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965, nearly 50 years ago. On the first day of the month, the most important mechanism for increasing access to newly available affordable health insurance—the…

October book talks, conferences, and really “Zbig” events

October continues a lively fall season for JHU Press authors, editors, and staff. One notable three-day stretch includes the launch of Michael Olesker’s new book, Front Stoops in the Fifties, at Baltimore’s Pratt Library on October 21; a stellar gathering at JHU/SAIS in Washington, D.C., to celebrate the publication of ZBIG: The Strategy and Statecraft…

How to Live, What to Do: Commemorating Wallace Stevens’ Birthday

Guest Post by Thomas G. Sowders On this 134th anniversary of Wallace Stevens’ birth, we might well ask: Why do we keep turning to this poet? Paradoxically both one of the most highly regarded and least-known major men of the modernist era, Stevens’ ideas—his belief in a supreme fiction, his faith in the abstract, his fascination…