Robert Kagan, "Nation-Building, Our National Pastime," NYT, 14 October, reviews Jeremi Suri's Liberty's Surest Guardian: American Nation-Building From the Founders to Obama.

Simon Johnson and James Kwak, "Debt and Dumb," Vanity Fair, November, v. William Hogeland, "Hamiltonians in ‘Vanity Fair' Get Whiskey Rebellion, Tea Party, Hamilton Himself Way Wrong; Or: How Liberalist Consensus Fails Both History and Politics," Hysteriography, 11 October, and Hogeland, "All I'm Trying to Say Here," ibid., 14 October. Thanks to Chris Bray for the tip.

Christopher Benfey, "A Keats Brother on the American Frontier," NYT, 14 October, reviews Denise Gigante's The Keats Brothers: The Life of John and George.

Joseph Epstein, "Dynasts of the Daily Press," NYT, 13 October, reviews Megan McKinney's The Magnificent Medills: America's Royal Family of Journalism During a Century of Turbulent Splendor and Amanda Smith's Newspaper Titan: The Infamous Life and Monumental Times of Cissy Patterson.

Martha C. Nussbaum, "Gandhi and South Africa," Nation, 12 October, reviews Joseph Lyleveld's Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle With India.

Michael Hiltzik, "What the New Deal Accomplished," Slate, 13 October, is excerpted from Hiltzik's new book, The New Deal: A Modern History.

Holly Case, "Innocents Lost: On Postwar Orphans," Nation, 11 October, reviews Tara Zahra's The Lost Children: Reconstructing Europe's Families After World War II.

Saul Austerlitz reviews Gershom Gorenberg's The Unmaking of Israel for The National, 14 October.

Matt Taibbi, "My Advice to the Occupy Wall Street Protesters," Rolling Stone, 12 October, offers the protest movement a five plank platform.