Leon Wieseltier is the editor of Liberties.

Celeste Marcus is the managing editor of Liberties.

Gilles Kepel is the Middle East and Mediterranean Chair Professor at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris and the author most recently of Terror in France: the Rise of Jihad in the West and Away from Chaos: The Middle-East and the Challenge to the West. This essay was translated by Henry Randolph.

Ingrid Rowland is the author, among other books, of From Pompeii: The Afterlife of a Roman Town. She teaches at Notre Dame.

Vladimir Kara-Murza is a Russian opposition politician and writer. He chairs the Boris Nemtsov Foundation for Freedom and serves as vice president at the Free Russia Foundation.

Paul Starr is a professor of sociology and public affairs at Princeton University, and the author, most recently, of Entrenchment: Wealth, Power and the Constitution of Democratic Societies.

Henri Cole is an American poet. Blizzard, his latest collection of poetry, was published last year.

Becca Rothfeld is a PhD candidate in philosophy at Harvard and a contributing editor at The Point.

Enrique Krauze is a Mexican essayist, producer, and publisher. He is the author of many books and the founder of the magazine Letras Libres. This essay was translated by Thomas Bunstead.

William Deresiewicz is the author of Excellent Sheep and, most recently, The Death of the Artist.

Benjamin Moser is the author, among other books, of Why This World: A Biography of Clarice Lispector and Sontag: Her Life and Work.

Chaim Nachman Bialik was one of the giants of modern Hebrew poetry and one of the founders of modern Jewish culture. This translation is dedicated to Allan Nadler.

David Nirenberg is the Dean of the Divinity School of the University of Chicago.

Agnes Callard is a professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago.

Mitchell Abidor is a writer and translator, most recently of Victor Serge's Notebooks 1936-1947.

Peter Phillips is a choral conductor, a musicologist, and the founder of The Tallis Scholars.

Paul Muldoon is an Irish poet. His most recent book is Frolic and Detour.

David Thomson's new books A Light in the Darkness: A History of Movie Directors and Disaster Mon Amour will be published this year.