The Bowdoin Review

United States

A Fair Chance?


Note: This is the second piece in a series examining criminal justice in America. Read the introduction here. The people most likely to go to prison in the United States are the ones who have been there before. It is known as the “revolving door”: over 650,000 people are released from state and federal prisons […]

Criminal Justice Under a Trump Presidency


Writer’s note: This piece is the first in a multi-part series on criminal justice reform. The series will examine variation in criminal justice policies between states and evaluate the effectiveness of local reforms that have aimed to reduce mass incarceration and improve treatment of ex-offenders. Six months ago, the prospects of criminal justice reform were […]

Making a Place for Financial Literacy in the Liberal Arts


On the first day of class in Financial Economics at Bowdoin College, Professor Matthew Botsch of the economics department prefaced his lecture with an announcement. Anyone taking the course for the purpose of preparing for a career in finance, investment banking, or consulting should leave, he warned. Botsch is not alone in discouraging such an […]

Spotting the Spoiler


Mention the word “spoiler” in the presence of a Democrat, and you will surely hear about the Al Gore presidency that could have been. “If only Ralph Nader had not played spoiler. If only he had not siphoned off a few of Gore’s votes in Florida to help George W. Bush win the presidency in […]

The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions


Ivan Illich, an Austrian philosopher and outspoken critic of contemporary western culture, in his speech to the 1968 Conference on Inter-American Student Projects, said, “next to guns and money, the third-largest North American export is the American idealist.” The resource, replenished each year with a new graduating class of wide-eyed twenty-somethings eager to make their […]

Local Voice, Global Issue – Ep. 1: Yik Yak and Campus Dialogue


Debates on issues such as political correctness have become more contentious on colleges across the nation. Yik Yak and other forms of anonymous social media are now playing a bigger role in the discussion. Since many posts have been derogatory or vacuous, should anonymous social media even be part of the discourse? [soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/262546076?secret_token=s-Tmy41″ params=”color=000000&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false” […]

The Fatal Flaw of Border Security


Maria Ochoa will not forget the day in June 2007 when her party stumbled upon human remains while searching for an undocumented immigrant in the southern Arizona desert. We were looking for a young woman that had stayed behind with her uncle and her husband because her uncle had become ill. She was seven months […]

More than the Money


Despite its widespread demonization, Wall Street continues to exert a pull over Bowdoin students. Kayla Kaufman talks to them about their motivations for entering the world of finance.