National Affairs

19/04/2026

Award-winning historian Allen Guelzo profiles Salmon P. Chase, the man in Lincoln's shadow who helped fund the Union victory in the Civil War:

Most accounts of the relationship between Abraham Lincoln and his secretary of the Treasury, Salmon P. Chase, conclude that Lincoln was right and Chase was wrong. Lincoln was Lincoln, after all. But this obscures how much Lincoln's success depended o...

16/04/2026

Karl Zinsmeister makes the case for depoliticizing charitable donations, but also urges political leaders not to undermine the immense good that American philanthropies do:

American philanthropy has come under heightened scrutiny following incidents of malfeasance and accusations that some grant-makers fuel partisan extremism. When bad actors misuse America's charitable impulse, regulators should respond. But in doing s...

16/04/2026

Stephen Eide joined our latest podcast to discuss how refocusing public libraries could help solve America's reading crisis:

The National Affairs Podcast, Episode 67: On refocusing libraries to reverse America's reading decline. ...

14/04/2026

What makes American geniuses, and how can we cultivate the talents of future ones? Michael M. Rosen considers the biographies of Elon Musk, Jensen Huang, Sam Altman, and Bill Gates:

We typically regard geniuses as supremely bright individuals gifted with uncommon intellect at birth. But recent biographies of Elon Musk, Jensen Huang, Sam Altman, and Bill Gates reveal a more complex picture. Understanding what drives such innovato...

12/04/2026

Stephen Eide on refocusing public libraries to solve America's reading crisis:

Americans are reading less than ever. Policymakers know this is a problem, but they rarely look to public libraries for solutions. Instead, libraries have embraced an agenda of redundancy, morphing into technology centers, daytime homeless shelters, ...

09/04/2026

Arpit Gupta & Steven M. Teles on how to boost housing construction in America and lower prices: continued land-use reform with a light-touch industrial policy for factory-built housing.

Since the 1970s, productivity in the housing sector has steadily declined. The way forward requires combining continued land-use reform with a light-touch industrial policy for factory-built housing. Homes or components manufactured in controlled env...

07/04/2026

C. Jarrett Dieterle on how conservative and libertarian approaches can tackle mental health as a policy challenge:

Americans are reporting more and greater mental-health concerns than ever before, yet the political right has largely ceded the issue to the left. It need not do so. Conservative and libertarian approaches — namely loosening occupational-licensing ru...

05/04/2026

Rounding out the education essays in our Spring issue, Mark Bauerlein urges policymakers and activists to focus their attention on reforming colleges' general-education curricula:

Almost all colleges have general-education requirements. But rather than providing students with a common baseline from which to learn, these programs typically allow students to choose from hundreds of boutique classes with no shared tradition, no c...

03/04/2026

Steven F. Wilson on the five evasions in American education that put schools at odds with their own purpose: intellectual training.

The American educational system is at odds with its own purpose: intellectual training. Rather than ensuring every child becomes literate, numerate, and knowledgeable, educators too often invoke therapeutic, instrumental, technological, futuristic, a...

02/04/2026

Dan Lips & Michael Toth on the next steps for the school-choice movement, including education savings accounts, 529 plans, and child savings accounts that give Americans more control over their education:

Historic changes are underway in K-12 education. So far, 19 states have established choice programs for all resident children. But these programs are just the beginning. Education savings accounts, 529 plans, and child savings accounts are expanding ...

31/03/2026

Our Spring issue features a suite of education essays, beginning with Chester E. Finn, Jr., on the three faces of education accountability: https://nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/three-faces-education-accountability