As US forces stormed through Iraq in the spring of 2003, Iraqi officials scurried to hide the archives of the ruling Baath Party and Revolutionary Command Council (RCC) as well as of key government and intelligence departments in underground cellars where they were nevertheless soon discovered by trophy hunters.

America reveres its founders. They are portrayed on monuments large and small, celebrated on national holidays and invoked in everyday conversation, and commemorated by the names of countless cities, schools, and streets — none more iconic than Madison Avenue.

Vladimir Putin is no Josef Stalin, says Hoover fellow Stephen Kotkin, but his regime’s weakness poses its own kind of danger.