"The Rise and Fall of Peace on Earth examines that singularly peaceful quarter century. Its initial three chapters describe how and why peace came to be established in three important parts of the world: Europe (Chapter 1), where it was most firmly embedded; East Asia (Chapter 2), which was more peaceful than at any other time in its modern history; and the Middle East (Chapter 3), the least peaceful of the three regions during those 25 years. These...

America has a huge problem. It faces four major challenges, on which its future depends, and it is failing to meet them. In That Used to Be Us, Thomas L. Friedman, one of our most influential columnists, and Michael Mandelbaum, one of our leading foreign policy thinkers, analyze those challenges-globalization, the revolution in information technology, the nation's chronic deficits, and its pattern of energy consumption-and spell out what we need to...