Christopher Michaelson, Ph.D.

Death of a Salesman's preeminence as the Great American Play -- as Mike Nichols, the director of its current, affecting Broadway revival, puts it -- is even less controversial than The Great Gatsby's status as the Great American Novel. More specifically, Salesman is the canonical narrative of American capitalism --...

When Vladimir Putin proposed himself to be keeper of the Russian literary canon, observers in some American publications reacted with residual Cold War suspicion. He who proposed the list will also decide the list, consolidating state control over culture, they feared. It must be part of Putin's plan to rule...

As world leaders prepared for the World Economic Forum's annual fête in Davos, Switzerland in January, the event continued to embody what is arguably the most pressing irony of capitalism today. The problem of too much -- over-consumption, excessive rewards for an elite few -- flaunts alongside the problem of...