“An institution,” Emerson proclaimed in “Self-Reliance,” “is the lengthened shadow of one man.” Like much that Emerson wrote, “Self-Reliance” is longer on attitude than argument. Its mode is hortatory. But Emerson’s mot about institutions hints at some important characteristics of those curious joint ventures. For one thing, institutions tend to exist beyond themselves in a penumbra of interests: they loom. Then, too, institutions tend to owe their identity, in large part, to the animating energies of individuals. (“One man”? Well, sometimes.) They are impersonal entities enlivened by the personalities that created and maintain them. We thought of Emerson’s fertile phrase when contemplating the ten-part, year-long series of essays on America and its institutions that we inaugurate in this issue.

Even before the terrorist attacks of 9/11, it had become clear that a n ...

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