The subject of American counterintelligence has generated a considerable amount of scholarship in recent years, the bulk of that research focusing on the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and its predecessor, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). Those agencies were and continue to be commonly recognized as having fulfilled the primary role as the nation's intelligence-gatherers. Within this vast intelligence community exists a microcosm in the form of counterespionage, or more euphemistically, counterintelligence.

Thomas Philpott, in his pioneering study, The Slum and the Ghetto, argued that housing reformers were paternalistic, that “regulating tenant conditions … involved regulating the tenement dwellers.” In particular, he pointed out the problems with housing laws that seemingly improved the quality of housing for the poor by setting minimum standards. Instead of improving conditions, however, these regulations simultaneously raised the price of new housing beyond what immigrants and poor workers could pay, while also destroying those buildings, no matter how troubled, that they could afford. In other words, middle-class housing policy, while well intentioned, had a negative impact, because it failed to consider the needs of the population or to provide affordable substitutes for the housing that was eliminated.

The Great Depression, World War II, and Keynesian Revolution all contributed to a transformation in the role of the state in the economy. By the postwar period, it had become politically imperative, as well as intellectually sanctioned, for the state to assume responsibility for addressing unemployment. Certain Western governments were willing and able to go to great lengths to ameliorate joblessness, and in some cases prevent it, while others seemed capable or inclined to go less far. As anyone who studies unemployment in a comparative context knows, Sweden and the United States present a vivid contrast in how seriously governments undertook this responsibility and to what degree they were willing to extend the control of the state in the market conomy. It is precisely because these two nations stand at virtually opposite poles in the commitment to eliminating unemployment and in implementing policies toward that end that many scholars have sought to compare them. Compared to the United States, Sweden's policy objectives have been much more ambitious, its policy instruments more diverse and capable of intervening more extensively in the labor market, and its budgets for training, relocation, and job-creation schemes substantially larger. In short, in Sweden we find the government doing more, and in the United States we find it doing less.

A number of American cities experienced urban renewal in the 1950s and 1960s. Historians and others who have chronicled the urban changes of those decades have cited economic redevelopment as the motivating factor in the rebuilding of the downtown and the relocation of the black population from that area. For example, Carl Abbott in his analysis of Sunbelt cities noted that “the rebuilding of downtown districts was intended to secure two related economic goals.” The first was to make the city more appealing as a center of investment and business activity as opposed to competing cities; the second was to enhance the downtown area in light of suburban development which might attract business away from the central city. Clarence Stone-in his study of Atlanta's renewal also indicates the primacy of economic factors as the motivation for rebuilding the city's downtown and uprooting the black population.

Few issues in modern America—indeed throughout the Western world— have proved as divisive, bitter, and intractable as that of abortion. Hardly anyone is without an opinion on the subject, and these views are frequently held and advanced with passion. While never perceived by the majority as the single most important issue before the public, the abortion issue has not gone away but rather remains, like a nagging toothache, as a continued source of pain and anger. Nor is it likely to subside in the future. Not only do the parties to the current dispute show no signs of ceasing their efforts, there is reason to believe that the issues and principles involved in the dispute are likely to reappear in other forms.