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Ian Buruma

Ian Buruma

Writing for PS since 2001
174 commentaries

Ian Buruma is the author of numerous books, including Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo Van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance, Year Zero: A History of 1945, A Tokyo Romance: A Memoir, and, most recently, The Churchill Complex: The Curse of Being Special, From Winston and FDR to Trump and Brexit.

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  3. op_burleigh2_LeemageCorbis via Getty Images_caesarassassination Leemage/Corbis via Getty Images

    Killer Politics

    Michael Burleigh

    The sheer volume of TV series and films about assassins speaks to our morbid fascination with this dark side of politics and political history. But the fact that real-world political killings are increasingly going unpunished should prompt us to do some soul searching.

     considers the history of assassination, its abiding place in popular culture, and its comeback as a tactic.
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  6. hclark13_ Erik McGregorLightRocket via Getty Images_war on drugs Erik McGregor/LightRocket via Getty Images

    A Half-Century of Endless Drug War

    Helen Clark, et al.

    With his evidence-based, public-health approach to drug policy, US President Joe Biden is signaling that America’s longstanding strategies of repression and punishment have failed. The US should also champion a similar shift toward harm-reduction policies internationally.

     welcome the Biden administration’s emphasis on harm reduction rather than repression and punishment.
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  8. Drug War at 50 Erik McGregor/LightRocket via Getty Images

    America’s Longest War

    Fifty years after US President Richard Nixon declared a “war on drugs,” America’s strategy of repression has succeeded only in increasing violent crime, corruption, preventable disease, and incarceration. But what should replace this tried-and-failed prohibitionist approach if President Joe Biden’s administration decides to abandon it?

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