Claire Berlinski, a contributing editor of City Journal, is an American journalist who lives in Istanbul. She is the author of There Is No Alternative: Why Margaret Thatcher Matters.

Pascal Bruckner is a French writer and philosopher. He will be a visiting professor at Texas A&M University this autumn. His article was translated by Alexis Cornel.

Theodore Dalrymple, a physician, is a contributing editor of City Journal and the Dietrich Weismann Fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

Nicole Gelinas, a City Journal contributing editor and the Searle Freedom Trust Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, is a Chartered Financial Analyst and the author of After the Fall: Saving Capitalism from Wall Street—and Washington.

Joel Kotkin is a fellow at Chapman University in Orange, California. He thanks the Economic Research and Forecasting Project at California Lutheran University for providing analysis and charts.

Heather Mac Donald is a contributing editor of City Journal and the John M. Olin Fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

Steven Malanga is the senior editor of City Journal and a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. He is the author of the forthcoming Shakedown: The Continuing Conspiracy Against the American Taxpayer.

Jim Manzi is the founder and chairman of an applied artificial intelligence software company. He is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and the author of a forthcoming book about scientific knowledge and freedom.

E. J. McMahon is the Manhattan Institute’s senior fellow for tax and budgetary studies and director of the Institute’s Albany-based Empire Center for New York State Policy.

Joel Mokyr is the Robert H. Strotz Professor of Arts and Sciences and a professor of economics and history at Northwestern University. His latest book is The Enlightened Economy: Britain and the Industrial Revolution.

Fred Siegel is a contributing editor of City Journal, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, and a scholar in residence at St. Francis College in Brooklyn.

Guy Sorman, a City Journal contributing editor, is the author of Economics Does Not Lie and other books.

Sol Stern is a contributing editor of City Journal, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, and the author of Breaking Free: Public School Lessons and the Imperative of School Choice.

Tevi D. Troy, the former deputy secretary of health and human services and a former senior White House domestic-policy aide, is a visiting senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.

David Watkin is a professor emeritus of the history of architecture at the University of Cambridge. His many books include Radical Classicism: The Architecture of Quinlan Terry and The Roman Forum.

Marcus A. Winters, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, conducts research and writes about education policy.

Soundings:

Stefan Kanfer, a contributing editor of City Journal and a former editor of Time, is the author, most recently, of a biography of Marlon Brando, Somebody. Philippe Nemo is a professor of philosophy and political science at ESCP Europe; his article was translated by Alexis Cornel. James Panero is the managing editor of The New Criterion. Bert Useem is a professor of sociology at Purdue University. William Voegeli is a contributing editor of The Claremont Review of Books, a visiting scholar at Claremont McKenna College’s Salvatori Center, and the author of Never Enough: America’s Limitless Welfare State.

Artists:

Amy Fletcher is a portrait and event photographer based in New York City. Alberto Mena is an artist and a graphic designer, also based in New York City. Arnold Roth is a cartoonist whose work has appeared in Punch, The New Yorker, the New York Times, and many other publications. Jenny Pockley (oil on gesso, 2010). Jenny Pockley, a British artist, studied at the Royal Academy Schools. Over the past eight years, she has exhibited regularly at Sarah Myerscough Fine Art in Mayfair, London, where her series of large-scale paintings of New York, as seen from the sky over Manhattan, opens this September. Courtesy of Sarah Myerscough Fine Art (www.sarahmyerscough.com).