Oil's very future is being seriously questioned, debated, and challenged. The author of an acclaimed history explains why, just as we need more oil than ever, it is changing faster than we can keep up with.

By Daniel Yergin

Oil wealth used to hurt only those who had it. Now, it’s hurting everyone.

By Mahmoud A. El-Gamal and Amy Myers Jaffe

Why Barack Obama's energy-independence talk is just demagoguery.

By Prince Turki al-Faisal

It succors and drowns human life. And for the last eight years, oil—and the people and places that make it—was my obsession.

By Peter Maass

Inside the European pipeline fantasy that became a real-life gas war with Russia.

By Daniel Freifeld

As the world looks around anxiously for an alternative to oil, energy sources such as biofuels, solar, and nuclear seem like they could be the magic ticket. They're not.

By Michael Grunwald

A guide to the coming green geopolitical crises.

By David J. Rothkopf

Amid war and recession, Americans are in a no-nonsense, matter-of-fact mood. But that, says a leading architect of George W. Bush’s foreign policy, is no reason to adopt a misguided doctrine.

By Paul Wolfowitz

Can oil-rich countries avoid the resource curse?

By Moisés Naím

Why the price of oil might spike dramatically once again.

By The McKinsey Global Institute

Escapism is flourishing in the Great Recession.

By Liesl Schillinger

How the Egyptian literary czar who wants to lead the world’s top cultural body got caught up in his own country's anti-Semitism.

By Raymond Stock

on graphic histories.

By James McManus

By Natalie Nougayrède

Kishore Mahbubani, dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, says Minxin Pei underestimates the significance of Asia's growth in "Think Again: Asia's Rise." Economic Strategy Institute President Clyde Prestowitz suggests authoritarian leadership helped drive the region's success.

Vijay Nambiar, chief of staff to the U.N. secretary-general, says Jacob Heilbrunn's criticism of his boss in "Nowhere Man" is unfairly focused on style, not substance.

Economists Edward Hugh and Daniel Mitchell critique Edward Lucas's analysis of the collapse of the Baltic states. Hugh thinks long-term demographic trends are worrying, while Mitchell sees cause for optimism.

George Ayittey of the Free Africa Foundation observes that most African countries in the Failed States Index followed the same depressing formula to failure.

Irma Erlingsdóttir, director of the Center for Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Iceland, thinks Reihan Salam's "The Death of Macho" overestimates the erosion of "male-archy" in Iceland.