for social class? do we want a racial spoil system where jobs are distributed too achieve quotas? the answer for woolridge is more meritocracy, eliminating remaining forms of special treatment based on money, connections or identity, to true will you make sure talented people who work hard are recognized and moved up the ladder. one can argue in the spirit of winston churchill that mer to be ra i is probably the worst of all selection systems, except for all of the others. and finally losing the long game, the false promise of regime change in the middle east. this is a book with a seemingly narrow subject matter but it s really a broad book about america s engagement with the world. the author, philip gordon, currently working in the white house, points out that throughout the middle east the u.s. has responded to periods of transition in complex societies, sometimes by intervening forcefully from iraq, sometimes