Recall last summer: it was the summer of Joseph O’Neill’s Netherland, the most important book liked by people wearing the most important-looking glasses. It seems O’Neill has journeyed from that wire-rimmed menagerie of the psyche to Politics & Prose, where all such odysseys of the soul must, and do, eventually terminate. Plus, David Makovsky is a gentleman who will be arguing that some of the US’s terrible Middle East policies really came about because of “miscommunications.” Obviously this is terrific news, as it is written in the Social Contract that if a problem occurs because of a Miscommunication, alcohol or a lack of cell phone reception, then no party can be held accountable, for anything. Twitter.com/socialcontract (1762), by Rousseau. Look it up. MORE »