Latest Articles

Is Gotham Ready for Bioterror?

June 2017  •  City Journal

Savage terror attacks in recent years have killed thousands of people in the United States, Western Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. The increasingly brazen acts, while violent and tragic, have been limited in scope because of the terrorists' dependence on conventional weapons—firearms, vehicles, and homemade bombs. After each incident, a familiar sequence of responses ensues: politicians call for resolve; civil authorities and residents work to clean up the damaged area; medical personnel give aid to the victims; shopkeepers and merchants reopen. And almost everyone outside those directly affected moves on, hoping that terror won't call their number in the future. Getting on with life makes sense, of course, but complacency about terrorism looms as a serious problem in free societies—especially since future terrorist threats hold the potential to shake the foundations of our society. The overwhelming evidence—from Osama bin Laden's hard drive to incessant ISIS tweets—is that our jihadist enemies are determined to break through conventional limitations on death-dealing and do us even more grievous harm.

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Opioid Abuse Is a Public Health Crisis - Here's How Trump Can Beat It

May 30, 2017  •  Observer

The Trump administration has created a commission, led by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, to address the opioid crisis, which killed over 30,000 Americans in 2015. In crafting its recommendations, the commission should look to lessons from previous presidents. During the 20th century, three presidents faced major public-health crises: Franklin Roosevelt and polio, John F. Kennedy and smoking, and Ronald Reagan and HIV/AIDS.

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review of The Ideas Industry

May 16, 2017  •  Commentary

The term "public intellectual" took off in the 1980s with the publication of Russell Jacoby's book The Last Intellectuals. Jacoby's argument was that the intellectual ferment of the 1950s and 1960s in the pages of magazines such as Commentary had departed from the American scene, and people who might once have labored in these vineyards were instead opting for academic specialization rather than providing their general wisdom on a freelance basis.

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How to Make the Heritage Foundation Great Again

May 3, 2017  •  Politico

The Heritage Foundation was built to matter, and for its first three decades it mattered as much as any think tank in Washington. In 1971, two Republican Hill staffers, Ed Feulner and Paul Weyrich, were annoyed that a useful American Enterprise Institute study on government funding for the Supersonic Transport plane wasn't issued until a few days after a close vote on the issue. Weyrich called AEI President William Baroody to ask him why: "Great study. Why didn't we get it sooner?" Baroody's response, "We didn't want to try to affect the outcome of the vote."

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Presidents and Public-Health Crises

Spring 2017  •  National Affairs

Over the course of the 20th century, the United States faced three major public-health crises: the polio epidemic, excessively high smoking rates, and HIV/AIDS. Each of these crises took place over a multi-year period, and multiple presidents dealt with both their effects and the national response to them. Nonetheless, certain presidents came to be specifically identified with each of these crises: Franklin Roosevelt and polio, John F. Kennedy and smoking, and Ronald Reagan and HIV/AIDS.

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Books by Tevi Troy