In Ascent of the A-Word, UC Berkeley’s Geoffrey Nunberg discerns a significant cultural shift. Post-World War II, “phony” was the epithet of choice, but sometime in the ’70s, “asshole” elbowed it aside. Nunberg...

History seldom repeats itself but often offers a guide to what might happen next. Given the media's general incomprehension over the “Arab Spring,” the analysis by Marc Lynch, director of George Washington University's Institute for Middle East...