Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

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This week on nybooks.com: How feelings of scarcity limit us, a lifesaving, path-breaking doctor, Shakespeare’s women and men, the responsibility to protect the people of Syria, a novelist who spied for Mussolini, video from the Cairo crackdown, photographs of vanished Paris, and, from the Review’s forthcoming issue, a report on Syria’s refugee catastrophe.
It Captures Your Mind Cass R. Sunstein Characteristics that we attribute to individual personality (lack of motivation, inability to focus) may actually be a problem of limited bandwidth. The problem is scarcity, not the person. Compare a computer that is working slowly because a lot of other programs are operating in the background. Nothing is wrong with the computer; you just need to turn off the other programs.
The Doctor Who Made a Revolution Helen Epstein By the time Sara Josephine Baker retired from the New York City Health Department in 1923, she was famous across the nation for saving the lives of 90,000 inner-city children. The public health measures she implemented, many still in use today, have saved the lives of millions more worldwide. She was also a charming, funny storyteller.
On the Edge of Slander Stephen Greenblatt In Much Ado About Nothing, as in virtually all of his comedies, Shakespeare finds the central woman character far more sympathetic and appealing than the man. Portia, Rosalind, Viola, Helena (in All’s Well That Ends Well), Innogen (in Cymbeline), Hermione (in The Winter’s Tale), and even Adriana (in The Comedy of Errors) are incalculably superior to the men with whom they are mated. They are more sensitive, intelligent, and thoughtful, and also tougher and more resilient.
					ALSO IN THE CURRENT ISSUE Peter Beinart on Jews and Palestinians Daniel Kevles on patenting genes Tim Flannery on jellyfish Fintan O’Toole on J.M. Coetzee Elizabeth Drew on our broken politics Anka Muhlstein on Marie Duplessis Gabriele Annan on Marlene Dietrich Amy Knight on Putin and the Olympics Nicholas Lemann on The New Deal Ian Buruma on Adam Johnson Edward Mendelson on Saul Bellow Michael Tomasky on This Town ... and more
From Cocaine to Fascism Alexander Stille Behind Italy’s official façade of bourgeois morality, traditional family life, and patriotism, the novelist Pitigrilli saw a world driven by sex, power, and greed. His most successful novel describes a world of cocaine dens, gambling parlors, orgies, lewd entertainment, and séances. Mussolini was a fan.					How to Save the Syrians Michael Ignatieff We may be at a turning point in the Syrian agony. But it is only too obvious that thus far the peoples of the democratic states have failed in our responsibility to protect the people of Syria.
Scenes from a Crackdown: What Really Happened in Cairo? Yasmine El Rashidi A series of videos reveals a more complex reality of what happened in the August 14 crackdown on protesters in Cairo.				Marville’s Vanished Paris Luc Sante Charles Marville's exquisitely nuanced and lavishly detailed views of the alleys and impasses of mid-19th-century Paris anticipate Atget so completely you’d occasionally swear they were the same person. A slideshow of his work.
Syria’s Refugees: The Catastrophe Hugh Eakin and Alisa Roth At every stage, violent confrontations between rebels and the army, or between rebels and pro-regime militias, or even among different rebel groups, have made the refugee crisis worse. Addressing the problem will require a concerted international effort to limit the conflict’s spread.