A characteristic of our times is the regression of social structures from more developed states to less developed states. The modern legal tradition, with its trappings of objectivity and impartiality, has slipped back to the medieval rendering of rents, privileges, and rights based on group or corporate identities and their relations to the state. In the sphere of international relations, spheres of influence and interstate jockeying for hard power are replacing the legalistic structures of the 20th-century settlement. Social and religious structures that have been taken as axiomatic since the 18th century no longer shape daily life, injecting a distinctly premodern turbulence into public order and fostering the adversarial relationship with state structures that the theory of consent of the governed was supposed to supplant. Great migrations have again become a major force in world history.

No wonder, then, that an atavism like cattle-rustling again demands the attention of policymakers. Our cover story from Joseph Addington describes how the mass movement of peoples through Central America, egged on by the Biden administration’s casual approach to border enforcement, led to an explosion in livestock smuggling, which in turn revived a problem not seen in the United States for over 50 years: the screwworm. This flesh-eating parasite threatens great disruptions to the American cattle industry (and consequently to Americans’ meat-heavy diet). It is a story that has not yet been told in detail; we are proud to bring history’s first draft of what may prove to be one of the more consequential challenges to American agriculture in the early decades of the 21st century.

The movement and conflict of peoples is one of history’s great dynamos. Geoffrey Aronson addresses the long-simmering Israel–Palestine conflict, the kernel of the events consuming so much American attention and resources in the Middle East. Bradley Pearce reviews a book about a French hotel that served as the waiting room for displaced people during the Second World War, the disruptions of which underwrite so much of the modern world order.

Can such forces be turned back? This is the essential question for conservatives. Razib Khan writes about the Trump administration’s successes in restoring one section of the decaying edifice of the Western legal tradition, impartiality before the law; Andrew Day reviews a new book from the regular American Conservative contributor Scott Greer, who identifies many causes for hope in the current political moment. William Lind advises a return to the advanced civilizational practices of the Victorian era. Christopher Montgomery revisits the greatest reaction against the forces of decadent technocracy in this century so far, Brexit, on the occasion of its 10th anniversary. Tho’ much is given, much still remains. Perhaps all is not yet lost.

Of course, these high-level movements in human affairs are in some way just background. What touches individuals’ lives most closely are the transactions of culture and the economy. TAC’s UK bureau editor, Benjamin Schwarz, has penned what may be the definitive interpretation of the work of the late Tom Stoppard, the most prominent playwright of the Anglophone world. Luke Nicastro examines how technological developments—namely, advances in artificial intelligence—are challenging long-held conservative economic and political orthodoxies. Nicastro is TAC’s newest hire, coming to us after several years of service in industry and government, most recently at Sen. Josh Hawley’s office. Welcome, Luke.