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How Soft is Smart Joel Whitney interviews Joseph Nye, October 2008 Author Joseph Nye on the definition of soft power, why it's imperative to getting what a country wants, and which presidential candidate is better equipped to use it.   Contrary to the popular notion that strong men, war veterans, or “deciders” make more electable, tougher presidents, a White House inhabited by Barack Obama would be measurably more effective, safer, and better respected around the world than a McCain White House. That’s if Joseph Nye, an admitted Obama supporter, is right. The former dean of Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and former Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs in the Clinton Administration, Nye’s most sweeping contribution to international affairs may be his simple coinage: soft power. The phrase has been embraced widely by foreign leaders and in the business community, but is little discussed in American campaign discourse. Perhaps uns...

Photograph: Gleb Kosorukov On the night of 30-31 August 1935, the ­Soviet miner Alexey Stakhanov set a new record for coal production. Working deep inside the ­bowels of a mine in eastern Ukraine, ­Stakhanov managed to hew out 102 tonnes of coal in five hours and 32 minutes. This was 14 times more than the standard daily norm. Although it later emerged he had help, ­Stakhanov's super-human feat became a synonym for heroism and communist endeavour. In a matter of months the "Stakhanov" movement had spread across the Soviet Union, with workers and farmers urged to set their own norm-defying records for personal productivity. Seventy-five years later, miners still work at the mine where Stakhanov set his record. In a series of 100 remarkable portraits, the Russian photographer Gleb Kosorukov has captured the Ukrainian miners on their ­return to the surface from a six-hour shift ­underground, amid dust, dirt and artificial light. Most of the miners agreed to be photog...

Infographic: The Ten Most Expensive Pieces of Art Ever Sold By Cliff Kuang Last week, a mysterious rich man paid $104.3 million [1] for a six-foot tall sculpture by Alberto Giacometti, making it the most expensive piece of art ever sold. Following that news, GOOD and graphic-design firm Karlssonwilker [2] created an infographic of the ten most expensive pieces of art of all time. (Full-size here [3].) (The title, Not-So-Starving Artists, is deceiving because it's hard to starve if you're all dead. The real lucre goes to Christie's and Sotheby's, the two major auction houses.) Obviously, the graph is a schematic, but here's the actual works, if you're curious to learn more: 1.Walking Man I by Alberto Giacommeti--$104.3 million 2.Boy with a Pipe by Pablo Picasso--$104.1 million 3.Dora Maar with Cat by Pablo Picasso--$95.2 million 4.Adele Bloch Bauer II by Gustav Klimt--$88 million 5.Triptych, 1976 by Francis Bacon--$86.3 million 6.Portrait du Dr G...