Given our current preoccupation with conducting a war on drugs, we run the danger of forgetting that, once upon a time, the sale of opium was widely condoned and, in some Asian societies under colonial rule, even monopolized by the state. While this clearly encouraged the widespread use of opium in these societies, some have claimed that it at least served to keep more dangerous and addictive drugs at bay. Within Asia there is no question that the postwar era has seen a dramatic shift away from opium to other addictive drugs, in particular heroin, and that this has coincided with the introduction of anti-opium laws. Are we then justified in concluding that the success of the anti-opium movement in prohibiting opium has served to encourage the spread of heroin?

By most assessments, Jimmy Carter's presidency was a failure. The popular image of Carter is that of a president who was politically naive, an inept manager, a well-meaning but nettlesome scold, and an unsuccessful leader. According to two recent scholarly evaluations, Carter was an ineffective leader who ranks in the bottom quintile of the thirty-nine presidents who have preceded George Bush.

In the last fifteen years or so I have found myself at odds with friends, colleagues, and other luminaries over whether the changes among political activists within the major political parties are real but modest in their impact or whether, as I believe, the changes are fundamental. Most commentaries on political parties by pundits and political scientists give no clue that anything fundamental has occurred. The Democratic party is described as if it were still the party of Harry Truman and Hubert Humphrey, and the Republican party is still conceived as tantamount to the party of Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon. True, the presidency of Ronald Reagan led to discussions of a strong conservative trend; by and large, however, this trend is treated as an aberration, a product of Reagan's peculiar personality and popularity rather than an indicator of basic change within the Republican party.

Canadian policy on the protection of refugees has evolved through three distinct traditions. During the first era, refugee protection was constructed as a matter of immigration control. Indeed, until the middle of the twentieth century, Canada had no law or policy specifically oriented to the admission of refugees. Refugees simply applied for permission to enter Canada under the auspices of the general immigration scheme, the primary purpose of which was to promote domestic economic interests. The erosion of this historical view of refugees as immigrants has occurred only gradually, such that even today most refugees protected by Canada must meet immigration selection criteria, in addition to showing that they are at risk in their home country.

The dark side of European history, the waves of persecution, the pogroms, and the explosions of political and ethnic violence have produced movements of refugees throughout the period of recorded history. There is nothing new in the phenomenon of forced displacement, of individuals and groups being suddenly uprooted and tragically torn from ties of nationality, of home, of family. One of the marks of social progress in Europe has been precisely the range of responses that have been developed to handle such movements of people, responses that have resulted in a codification of laws and the evolution of international institutions which, particularly in the twentieth century, constitute a remarkable example of internationalism and human solidarity. Such social progress has never been smooth; indeed it is disfigured by historical moments of great cruelty and shame where states have denied asylum to persons in acute distress. Worse, as the experience of Nazi Germany demonstrates, European states of immense sophistication and cultural richness have been capable of unspeakable savagery, which has led to the creation of enormous human displacements within Europe and beyond. Nevertheless, the right of asylum itself has become established as a norm of civilized international behavior in Europe and many millions of persecuted and marginalized people have benefited from it. Many millions more have within their family history an experience of someone who was forced to move, victimized by repression of their race, religion, their nationality, their opinions; and elsewhere, those who perished in ghettos, concentration camps, and unmarked killing fields.

Taxation is situated at the problematic intersection of two political constants: rulers need resources to govern, and the ruled are not eager to supply them. This dilemma is inherent in political organization and has engaged political leaders from despots to democrats; as a result, no policy area has a history longer than taxation. Despite this lengthy experience, however, an optimal strategy for resource extraction has not emerged. Across diverse countries and through time the essential goal of raising revenue has remained unchanged, but there is considerable disagreement about how to go about it. This poses a classic explanatory task for the student of public policy: the policy issue is a constant, but the policies vary—so what explains the variation? Why have policymakers made different choices at different times and places?

“Heirs of the Wizard” is a rather shallow attempt to dismiss the contributions of Walter E. Williams, Thomas Sowell, and Shelby Steele to issues surrounding race. Clarence E. Walker's misunderstanding of issues discussed by Sowell and Williams is captured by his phrase “practices that raise questions about Williams's faith in the market.” Speaking for myself, and probably Sowell, it is not a faith in the market as much as evidence about the market upon which we rely.

The American academy is in dire straits asserts journalist Charles J. Sykes in The Hollow Men. A largely unheralded “revolution from above,” the author claims, “has robbed higher education of much of its traditional content, while distorting its values and its basic principles” (309). To understand the contemporary academic scene, he continues, is to understand the radicalization of the academy by the left, which had resulted in the intrusion of politics into both scholarship and the classroom, assaults on those who do not accept the “politically correct” line, and a fragmented, incoherent curriculum that trivializes the historic meaning of the liberal arts. While the current “crisis of values” (309) is often traced to the 1960s student movement, Mr. Sykes argues that the roots of the problem also go back to the post–World War II period and perhaps even to the late nineteenth century, when the agreement over “ends” (71) disappeared and “higher education's immune system” was “destroyed” (72).