... forth a single theme, crisply expressed in a sentence or two, and then tell the entire story of that theme: the history of salt; the fragility of democracy; the use and misuse of punctuation. ... can be beat at their own game. And in the face of the Internet, their informa-tional advantage is shrinking every day—as evidenced by, among other things, the falling price of coffins and life-insurance ... about the won-derful opportunities of the global economy; they’ll be trying to keep body and soul together for people on the streets of these cities.” The smart money was plainly on the criminals....