The issue you hold in your hands will be The Public Interest’s last. No journal is meant to last forever, and this one won’t try to. We have decided, after forty years, to call it a day.

"The aim of The Public Interest," we remarked in our very first issue, "is to help all of us, when we discuss issues of public policy, to know a little better what we are talking about--and preferably in time to make such knowledge effective." We think we have lived up to this aim pretty well, but in the end, history will be the judge of that. Now we leave it to others to carry on the arguments and debates as they see fit, in other venues.

Meanwhile, we simply want to express our deepest gratitude to our many colleagues, contributors, and readers, who made this exciting and quite extraordinary adventure possible over the last four decades.