The David Bowie Myth

Marc Spitz has been writing on rock and roll and pop since 1997, when he wrote his first piece for Spin. Since then he’s written three books, including We Got the Neutron Bomb : The Untold Story of L.A. Punk, Nobody Likes You: Inside the Turbulent Life, Times, and Music of Green Day, and a novel, How Soon Is Never?, about a man trying to reunite The Smiths. His experience with Green Day – who authorized his biography and then recanted – made Spitz decide not to seek his subject’s …

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Lawrence Allen on Chocolate in China

Lawrence Allen gets part of the credit for bringing kisses to China – the chocolate kind. After several years working in Taiwan and Hong Kong on behalf of familiar brands …

What Would Lawrence of Arabia Do?

John C. Hulsman is the Alfred von Oppenheim Scholar in Residence at the German Council on Foreign Relations. Hulsman, a regular commentator and writer on Middle East and transatlantic affairs, …

Haggai Ram on Iranophobia

Haggai Ram is a senior lecturer at Israel’s Ben Gurion University, specializing in the modern history of the Middle East, and Iran and Israel in particular. And while he’s sticking …

Richard English on How to Handle Terrorism

Richard English is a professor of political science who has been studying the Irish Republican Army since the mid-1980s. His latest book, Terrorism: How to Respond, considers terrorism with a …

Lesley Hazleton on the Shia-Sunni Split

Lesley Hazleton, author of three books about the intersection of politics and religion in the Middle East and a one-time Middle East correspondent for various publications, was understandably hesitant to …