James Fallows
James Fallows
James Mackenzie Fallowsis an American writer and journalist. He has been a national correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly for many years. His work has also appeared in Slate, The New York Times Magazine, The New York Review of Books, The New Yorker and The American Prospect, among others. He is a former editor of U.S. News & World Report, and as President Jimmy Carter's chief speechwriter for two years was the youngest person ever to hold that job...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionJournalist
Date of Birth2 August 1949
CountryUnited States of America
country islamic thinking
If you didn't know better, you might have thought in 2003 and 2004 that U.S. government strategy was being set by people trying to make enemies rather than friends in the Arab-Islamic world. And if you didn't know better, you might think that the Chinese government's approach to the Olympics is being set by people trying to make the country look bad.
country thinking rich-countries
Contrary to what you might think, China's economy is relatively less efficient, and more polluting, than those of rich countries.
sacrifice unique thinking
A rigid America is also weak and vulnerable, because it sacrifices its unique strength: the energy of people who think they can always make something new of their lives.
thinking nuclear-weapons nato
I don't think anybody who is already with Donald Trump is going to be peeled off by his not knowing about NATO or why Japan does not have nuclear weapons, or things of that sort.
carefully checked constant generation gets hunger internet longer means news nonstop quickly technology
The technology of nonstop news and the Internet means that allegations that would have been carefully checked out a generation ago no longer are. We now have a 24-hour-a-day news cycle. News gets used up very quickly and there's a constant hunger for new tidbits.
decade disaster guided people public war
For a decade or more after the Vietnam war, the people who had guided the U.S. to disaster decently shrank from the public stage.
command english kept obvious people picking whose
When I was living in China, I learned to make things hyper-explicit because often they were being read by people whose command of English kept them from picking up what I thought were obvious signals.
costs decision fight invading iraq people risk time vietnam war whose
As many people have chronicled, the decision to fight in Vietnam was a years-long accretion of step-by-step choices, each of which could be rationalized at the time. Invading Iraq was an unforced, unnecessary decision to risk everything on a 'war of choice' whose costs we are still paying.
attributes full human necessary range success
No real-world human being brings to the U.S. presidency the range of attributes necessary for full success in the job.
party ignorance hands
The pandering and ignorance-across-party-lines represented by the John McCain-Hillary Clinton united front for a temporary reduction in the gasoline tax should make Americans hold their heads in their hands and moan [...] Please. This is embarrassing. It makes me long for the good old days of debating about flag pins on the lapel.
two google afar
I have relentlessly beat the drum for Google's 'two-step' authentication systems for Gmail and other services, which radically reduce the likelihood that your account can be hacked from afar.
boston phoenix people
I seem to be one of the few people in journalism who never worked or wrote for the 'Boston Phoenix.' I certainly read and admired it, and feel the same general malaise at news that it is gone.
differences choices needs
No one ever really 'learns' from history, because choices never present themselves in exactly the same way, and because you can always choose similarities and differences to fit current needs.
beautiful order lotuses
Over the eons I've been a fan of, and sucker for, each latest automated system to 'simplify' and 'bring order to' my life. Very early on this led me to the beautiful-and-doomed Lotus Agenda for my DOS computers, and Actioneer for the early Palm.