An article by Martha Nussbaum

Civil wars continue to be a frequent and debilitating phenomenon in international politics. Of the approximately 200 countries in the world, there are currently 30 civil wars underway, including several in which the U.S. military is directly and deeply enmeshed. In the twelve essays in this issue, the authors explore causative factors of civil war, the connection of intrastate strife and transnational terrorism, the limited successes and failed ambitions of intervening powers in the recent past, and the many direct and indirect consequences associated with weak states and civil wars, including the dangers posed by pandemics, mass migrations of people, and great-power proxy warfare.

Following an introduction from Mary C. Waters, Douglas S. Massey and Jorge Castañeda described the current state of U.S. immigration policy.

Arms trafficking has a long and influential history. At an Academy event held in Berkeley, California, historian Brian DeLay described how U.S. arms trafficking intervened at critical moments to destabilize Mexican governance. The program included commentary from historians Priya Satia and Daniel Sargent, as well as from political scientist Ron Hassner. The presentations explored how the history of arms trading may help to better understand the history of state-making and the power relations between the United States and the rest of the world.

On November 7, esteemed panelists Samuel Kortum, Paul Kennedy, Ian Shapiro, Jing Tsu, and Arne Westad were tasked with answering two monumental questions: can we fix the broken global order, and if so, how? Frances McCall Rosenbluth moderated the event, organized by the Academy's New Haven Program Committee.

The risk of nuclear terrorism has guided and informed the work of the Academy’s Global Nuclear Future Initiative since its inception in 2008.

For nearly 400 years, Marblehead had been governed by town meeting. But this time some citizens wondered if a heated housing debate across profound demographic divides would break this centuries-old system—or if Marblehead would show that the American experiment with democracy can still work.

Grants will support the Academy’s Humanities Indicators (www.HumanitiesIndicators.org), the first comprehensive collection of statistical data about the humanities in the United States.

This fall the Academy Archives embarks on a new project to clean, repair, rehouse, and digitize many important documents from the Academy's early years, as well as a unique collection of records to related to the family of Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford.

It is simple to hope for an end to the world’s civil wars–nearly thirty of which are underway right now–but it is not at all simple to bring these conflicts to an end when the causes are wide-ranging, the effects are extensive, the international response is uncertain, and the solutions are elusive. The Winter 2018 issue of Dædalus, “Ending Civil Wars: Constraints & Possibilities,” identifies impediments to ending civil wars and offers policy prescriptions for states and for the international community facing the spread of instability and humanitarian crises, including pandemic diseases and transnational terrorism.

The visual image that most people have of the Dead Sea Scrolls is likely of one of the beautifully preserved manuscripts stored in stone jars, discovered in the hill caves of Jordan in the late 1940s. Unfortunately, only a handful of the scrolls were preserved in this way.

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April showers may bring May flowers, but May flowers among archival materials can bring a host of problems.

Global challenges, like pandemics, cannot be addressed by one nation alone; scientific capacity is essential in all corners of the globe to deal with COVID-19 today and the threats of tomorrow. A new Academy report, “Global Connections: Emerging Science Partners,” issued by the Challenges for International Scientific Partnerships initiative, describes the importance of strengthening collaborations between the U.S. and emerging science partner countries.

The world may need to adopt new multinational arrangements to ensure the security and safe storage of nuclear materials that result from a global expansion of nuclear energy, according to the authors of a new collection from the American Academy.

Geoffrey R. Stone moderated a conversation with journalist Judith Miller, Judge Richard A. Posner, and author Gabriel Schoenfeld about the balance between freedom of the press and national security. Each panelist offered his or her perspective on bridging legal and ethical issues.