The Great Paper Caper by Jill Lepore Someone swiped Justice Frankfurter’s papers. What else has gone missing?

Warren Harding and the Emperor Diocletian by Paul Krugman "Harding 1921 'works' only because people don’t know much about it..."

The Country's Most Revealing Memorial to the Sand Creek Massacre Used to Celebrate the Killings by John B. Judis Why, we wondered, have a statue commemorating the soldiers who perpetrated the massacre?

Bush Admin. Spent Billions on an Iraqi Army with 50,000 “ghost” Soldiers by Juan Cole Iraqi Prime Minister Haydar al-Abadi announced to his parliament on Sunday that inspectors had uncovered 50,000 non-existent soldiers in four divisions of the Iraqi Army. Their pay was presumably being diverted to the officers in the division.

Russians Invade Afghanistan (Again!), Chinese Fight Iraq War (Again!) by Tom Engelhardt What If It Weren’t Us?

Why America Won’t Pay Ransom to Islamic State by Max Boot France, Germany and others shell out millions to terrorists, ensuring more kidnappings and bankrolling violence. Should we? No, but we have in the past.

Letter to My Friends: Why We Can't Expect to Win a Religious War in the Middle East by William Polk The only strategy that will work is to wait out the fanatics. Eventually, their movement will mature. Radical movements never last.

Five myths about lame-duck presidents by Steven G. Calabresi History shows they can get a lot done.

The Mormon Church backs a revisionist account of Joseph Smith. What it means. by Tim Egan Smith was a man of God, no doubt. But he was also a man, with considerable appetites.

How the Chicken Built America by Andrew Lawler While the eagle landed on the country’s Great Seal and the turkey gets pride of place at our holiday dinners, neither bird can claim to have changed American culture more than their lowly avian cousin, the chicken.