Daniel Richman leads a forum on the conflict between national security and civil rights, with responses from Bob Barr, Corey Robin, and others; Christine J. Walley explains Tanzania's people's park; Benjamin Paloff on Bruno Schulz.

Jennifer Howard on fantasy fiction; a short story by Emily Fridlund; Zack Finch on Marjorie Welish.

Sadik J. Al-Azm discusses Western dominance and the Muslim world; Alex de Waal explains the tragedy in Darfur; Ahmed S. Hashim on the Iraqi insurgency; a manifesto for democracy in Taiwan.

 Scott Saul looks at Henry Dumas, the lost voice of the Black Arts Movement; poetry from Allen Grossman and others.

Inside: How Can the Democrats Win? Rick Perlstein, with Ruy Teixeira, Daniel Cantor, Elaine Kamarck, William A. Galston, Adolph Reed Jr., Robert B. Reich, and others. Rajan Menon on ending the standoff in Chechnya; Martha C. Nussbaum on why women were mutilated in Gujarat, India; Paul Hockenos on Joschka Fischer. Susie Linfield on photographing cruelty; Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom on reading China; Grace Paley on Harvey Swados; poetry reviews by Calvin Bedient, Andrew Zawacki, and Larissa Szporluk. Poems by Adrienne Rich, David Lehman, Carol Ciavonne, and others.

What We Owe to Parents. Anne Alstott on how public policy can support the hard work of raising children. With Robin West, Amy L. Wax, Eva Kittay, Dorothy Roberts, Deborah Stone, and Richard A. Epstein. Stephen M. Meyer on the extinction crisis we've already lost; Peter A. Diamond and Peter R. Orszag's practical plan to save Social Security; Helena Cobban on the uncertain future of secular Palestinian nationalism; Diego Gambetta on post-9/11 irrationality. National Poetry Month: Hank Lazer on the radical democratization of American Poetry; Marjorie Perloff on Ezra Pound; Rachel Cline on Bruce Wagner; Jascha Hoffman on the Riemann Hypothesis; a story by Ander Monson; Alan A. Stone reviews Gillo Pontecorvo's Burn! Poems by Darryl Lorenzo Wellington, Li Hou Zhu, Caroline Knox, and Toni Burge.

Consent and Democracy: Elaine Scarry on local governments' refusal to comply with the Patriot Act; Larry Kramer on popular constitutionalism; Barbara Clark Smith on what the public life of American colonists can teach us about politics. Corey Robin on conservatives after the Cold War; John R. Bowen on France's headscarf controversy; Michael Standaert on an immigration crisis in the European Union; Rebecca Saxe on how our brains help us understand other people. Hilary Putnam reviews The Jewish Political Tradition, Volume II: Membership, by Michael Walzer et al.; Roger Boylan reviews John Banville; a story by D.S. Sulaitis, the winner of the 11th annual Boston Review fiction contest; Alan A. Stone reviews Thomas McCarthy's The Station Agent. Poems by Cynthia Cruz, Lucie Brock-Broido, Nadia Herman Colburn, and Karla Kelsey.

Rebuilding after violence: Alex de Waal on Somalia and the failure of Operation Restore Hope; Helena Cobban on the catastrophic inefficiency of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda; Ralph Cintron, Stevan Weine, and Ferid Agani on the enormous challenges of exporting democracy to Kosova; John Tirman on why humanitarian interventions have become military interventions. Gary Marcus on the adaptive nature of genes and what it means about the nature-nurture debate; Leo Marx on intellectuals and politics. Benjamin Paloff reviews Charles Simic. Poetry by Sophie Cabot Black, Brett Fletcher Lauer, and Arthur Rimbaud. Alan A. Stone on Thirteen.

What makes schools work? With Richard D. Kahlenberg, Bernard Wasow, William A. Galston, Richard J. Murnane, Reg Weaver, Joseph P. Viteritti, Amy Hanauer, and Deborah Meier. Noam Chomsky on the Bush administration's imperial grand strategy; Juan Cole on the Iraqi Shiites; Duncan Kennedy on the dangerous mix of economic and military goals in Iraq; James K. Galbraith on JFK and Vietnam; Martha C. Nussbaum on Bernard Williams. George Scialabba reviews Bill McKibben; Carl Elliot reviews Edward Tenner. Poetry by Karen Volkman, Carl Phillips, and Richard Howard. Alan A. Stone on Sweet Sixteen and Raising Victor Vargas.

“The Secret History of the Magna Carta” by Peter Linebaugh; Jonathan R. Cole on defending the university post–9/11; “Just Marriage”: Mary Lyndon Shanley on the public importance of private unions; Abbott Gleason compares today’s antiliberal revolt to that of 1920s Europe; and Leonardo Avritzer examines the chances Brazil’s President Lula has to redeem democracy in Latin America. In reviews: Susie Linfield on the literature of political memory; Jehangir Pocha on Zoroastrianism; and Charles Lawrence on Young, Gifted, and Black. In the New Fiction Forum, James Hynes surveys works by British novelist Adam Thorpe. Poems by Claudia Rankine, Aaron Belz, and Nikolai Zabolotsky.