by Nicholas Lemann

764 days ago

by Drive Kullar

967 days ago

by John Seabrook

1042 days ago

by Dhruv Khullar

1085 days ago

by Joan Acocella

1103 days ago

by Ed Caesar

1113 days ago

by Gideon Lewis-Kraus
Lewis-Kraus reviews the "big history" book written by David Graeber and David Wengrow, "The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity." They attempt to construct an alternative history of human civilization based on cooperation and democratic principles, rather than authoritarianism.
1115 days ago

by Jon Lee Anderson
Historicism is a crucial element of Spain's identity. Between all the nations within its borders (with their own languages, history, and customs), its history of colonialism across the globe, and its Fascist dictator that ruled for half of the 20th century, how the country defines its past is critical. Biden's proclamation of Indigenous People's Day replacing Columbus Day, which coincides with "El Día de la Hispanidad," is a perfect example of this.
1119 days ago

by Jon Lee Anderson
Anderson investigates the accusations against Juan Orlando Hernández, the President of Honduras, for narco-trafficking. He analyzes U.S. intervention in the country, and the North Triangle more broadly, looking at both the past and present to reveal how narco-trafficking has influenced growth and stability in the region.
1119 days ago

by Ian Parker
Parker investigates the criminal activities of Randy Constant, a farmer from Missouri who made it rich by falsely labeling, selling, and distributing non-organic corn as organic. Although Constant was brought to justice, it reveals just how delicate and dependent on trust current organic certifications are today.
1120 days ago

by Jamil Jan Kochai
The narrator speak in second person of an Afghan family living a typical life in California. They all have their intricacies, their problems, their hopes ans desires. But the narrator is listening for a reason.
1122 days ago

by Nick Paumgarten
Paumgarten looks into the questions that plagues most of us: why are there some people that seem super-charged with energy and how can we get some of it?
1126 days ago

by Jill Lepore
Lepore investigates African American burial suites around the country - many being forgotten to history as highways and parking lots were built on top them. It's near impossible to find the descendants buried in many, as the atrocities of slavery mean there is no written or clear history, so who can speaking up and defender them?
1153 days ago

by Rivka Galchen
Galchen investigates a form of energy that seems critical in a shift away from oil and coal: nuclear. But what sticks in the general public's mind is often massive nuclear plants, radioactive wastes, and meltdowns. She hopes to show, instead, that fusion (opposed to fission) is what could bring the world into a new age of clean energy.
1154 days ago

by Ben Taub
Regime change over the course of the Syrian Civil War meant that many in power within the former government had to flee the country and never return. Ben Taub investigates the case of Khaled al-Halabi, a high-ranking intelligence officer accused of war crimes, who fled to France and was then smuggled into Austria, eventually disappearing entirely.
1156 days ago

by Haruki Murakami
In this brief autobiographical piece, Murakami talks about the t-shirts he has collected throughout his life. Only he could make something so frivolous seem so meaningful.
1160 days ago

by Olga Tokarczuk

1163 days ago

by Amia Srinivasan
Srinivasan looks deeply at current debates within feminists movements across the world. Above all else, there seems to be debate around who can participate and lead certain movements. This has a serious effect on the trans community, who is caught between oppressive legislation in current governments and exclusion from some feminist groups.
1169 days ago

by Jelani Cobb
Cobb profiles Derrick Bell, one of the founders of critical race theory. He questioned the progress made by the Civil Rights movement, believing that "racism is so deeply rooted in the makeup of American society that it has been able to reassert itself after each successive wave of reform aimed at eliminating it."
1170 days ago

by Anand Gopal
In this appalling overview of civilian deaths from the Afghan War, Gopal looks to open our eyes to the prejudices that we may have previously held. Many, many civilians, primarily in rural areas, lost their lives, their families, and their livelihoods in the struggle between the Taliban and the American and NATO-backed armies. Gopal hopes to tell their stories.
1176 days ago

by Steve Coll
Comment: Coll reviews America's departure from Afghanistan and what that means for the international community.
1177 days ago

by Michael Luo
Looks reviews two books: “The Chinese Question” (Norton) by Mae Ngai and “The Chinese Must Go” (Harvard) by Beth Lew-Williams. He outlines the history of Chinese immigration in America, mainly focuses on the California Gold Rush and the years following it.
1185 days ago

by Zach Helfand
Helfand investigates the use of "robo-umpires" in the minor leagues, which are being tested and soon to be brought up to the majors. Some challenge this change, while others believe it's merely an extension of the automation and statistics that is already becoming a crucial part of the game.
1190 days ago

by Heidi Julavits
Julavits hikes to a volcanic fissure that recently opened up in Fagradalsfjall, Iceland, and writes about its natural beauty and its significance to the local Icelandic community. She writes that in the early weeks if it's eruption, the area "was an impromptu festival where you might encounter drunken revellers or the Icelandic President. The customs official who’d stamped my passport at the airport depicted the scene as a daily rager that started at midnight."
1196 days ago

by Adam Iscoe
Iscoe transmits the brief yet shocking story of Sahraa Karimi, a female Afghan filmmaker trapped in Kabul at the fall of the city.
1196 days ago

by Dexter Filkins
Filkins comments on the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan. He provides a quick history of American involvement, and concludes that the "President’s embarrassing speech last week...serves as a fitting end to America’s twenty-year endeavor."
1196 days ago

by Eyal Press
Press writes about Andrea Armstrong, an attorney looking to document deaths in Louisina prisons and jails. The state has a long history of treating its prisoners poorly, and Armstrong hopes to bring visibility to a problem that fails to grab public attention.
1197 days ago

by Joshua Rothman
In an age where rationality in the public sphere has seemed to go out the window, Rothman reviews various books on the subject. He focuses on Bayesian reasoning as a strong method of thought in the modern world.
1199 days ago

by Jane Mayer
For an average American, "election fraud" seemed to spring up out of nowhere in the last Presidential Election. Mayer reports that, instead, conservatives have been funding efforts to delegitimize elections for decades, with the hope of reversing progressive trends in more diverse legislatures. She details what groups are leading the effort, and more importantly, where the money is coming from.
1200 days ago

by Elizabeth Kolbert
Kolbert reviews the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's most recent report, which states that the world has warmed "nearly two degrees Fahrenheit" owing to humans and could raise nearly "or 6.5 degrees Fahrenheit...by around 2090."
1201 days ago

by Robin Wright
"Whatever the historic truth decades from now, the U.S. will be widely perceived by the world today as having lost what George W. Bush dubbed the 'war on terror'." Wright questions what this means for US foreign policy going forwards. What will its new role in the world be?
1204 days ago

by Jon Lee Anderson
As the United States removes all troops from Afghanistan, Anderson reflects on the nearly three decades he has reported on the country. He believes the Taliban have changed their public appearance, but still remain a fundamentalist group that is now in the edge of overtaking Kabul. Americans, either from the lack of knowledge or wish to forget, have little memory over the beginning if the war.
1206 days ago

by Steve Coll
The Pegasus spyware developed by the NSO Group jumped into the public consciousness in July. World leaders, journalists, human right activists, opposition leaders, and a slew of other high profile individuals were found to have been targeted by the software. Coll questions what this means for "dissent" going forwards.
1221 days ago

by Nicholas Lemann
Lemann embarks on a judicial history of affirmative action and diversity, sparked by a potential Supreme Court case: Students For Fair Admission vs. Harvard. He writes "[i]t’s distinctly possible that the Supreme Court, as early as next year, could signal that it considers efforts aimed explicitly at helping Black people to be unconstitutional."
1221 days ago

by Masha Gessen
Gessen profiles Lyubov Sobol, now one of the most prominent figures of Alexey Navalny's opposition movement against Vladimir Putin's government. Sobol opposes the emergence of Putinism, which Gessen writes "is the belief that the world is rotten, everything is for sale, and anyone who says otherwise is lying, probably because they are being paid to do so."
1226 days ago

by Joan Didion
Didion looks at the Hemingway's writing published posthumously and questions if it should ever had been published at all. She quotes Hemingway's antipathy towards this idea, and believes that the art if writing is very different from the outlines or scratches or ideas that are merely jotted down. There are moments when the writer manages to convert these to their true form, and only those works should be considered as true writing.
1232 days ago

by Rebecca Curtis
The narrator has writer's block, so her husband, Conor, invites a good friend over to tell his best stories. Tony is a former Marine turned police officer, who is an avid Trump supporter and a good storyteller.
1234 days ago

by Sally Rooney
Eileen works for a literary magazine, not making very much money but content, more-or-less, with her work. She has a curious relationship with Simon, a friend with whom she grew up and has drifted in and out of romantic entanglements. As her older sister gets married, Eileen attempts to figure out what she wants from her life.
1238 days ago

by Margaret Atwood
Atwood writes a brief story of how she learned to drive, first failing with her father, failing again with "a used-car dealer known as Frank the Pirate," and finally succeeding only when her life partner, Graeme Gibson, was forced to drive himself to the hospital after a near-fatal incident with "Fin the Dog."
1239 days ago

by Sterling HolyWhiteMountain
In this personal essay, HolyWhiteMountain writes of his adolescence in northwestern Montana. He remembers the sound of rock "having crossed the vast Northern plans night" to his radio, which taught him "the rhythm and arc and structure of narrative."
1240 days ago

by Marcel Proust
In this passage, more a sketch or outline than a short story for itself, we get a glimpse of "many of the themes and scenes" Proust would use for his novel, "In Search of Lost Time." Here, we follow the narrator as he becomes infatuated with a group of aristocratic young women spending their summer in his beach town. At first, they ignore him, believing him to be below their own social status, until he shows them through ridiculous gestures, that he's part of their class.
1243 days ago

by Imbolo Mbue
The narrators tells a story, in second-person, of two women in a small, remote village who try to attract husbands. The first seeks to use a love potion to convince her husband to love her. The second attempts to steal her cousin's husband, who she believes is rightfully hers.
1243 days ago

by Keith Ridgway
An elderly woman, whose husband had recently passed away, now lives alone with her cat. Her neighbors come by and tell her that they are going to have a party on Saturday night. They offer her a bottle of wine, an iPod with headphones, and earplugs as friendly gestures. On Saturday night, she awakes to the loud throb of music and spends the night spying on the party.
1246 days ago

by Nicolas Niarchos
The global demand for cobalt, a crucial element used to manufacture lithium-ion batteries, such as those used in electric cars, solar panels, wind turbines, etc., has increased dramatically alongside the rise of renewable energy. Niarchos reports on the "dark side" of its mining, specifically in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and looks deeply at the social, economic, and environmental impact that the current supply chain demands.
1246 days ago

by Elizabeth Kolbert
Kolbert reviews two new books, "Below the Edge of Darkness" (Random House) by Edith Widder and "The Brilliant Abyss" (Grove Atlantic) by Helen Scales. Kolbert focuses polymetallic nodules in the deep sea that can be mined for valuable metals and how that might affect the local environment, namely bioluminescent animals that thrive in these areas.
1246 days ago

by Rachel Heng
Hwee Bin lives in Sunrise Valley, a nursing home for old folks coming to the end of their lives. The residents constantly worry about High-D, or advanced dementia, and often see their friends being taken off for treatment in more serious wards. They are enthused, however, when a resident, Kirpal, is visited by his grand-daughter and interviewed by the Singapore Tribune.
1247 days ago

by Evan Osnos
Osnos provides a profile of the now controversial figure of the Democratic Party: Joe Manchin. Manchin was thrust into the national spotlight because he is a conservative Democrat that often votes with Republicans in a Senate that is evenly split between the parties. He has the power to stop any bill in its tracks, which both makes him a hero and a villain in the eyes of many.
1247 days ago

by Adam Gopnik
Gopnik reviews two new books: John Sedgwick's "From the River to the Sea" (Avid Reader) and Michael Hiltzik's "Iron Empires" (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). Gopnik compares the rise of railroads across America to the "infrastructure" questions we are now facing in politics.
1247 days ago

by Peter Hessler
Hessler reports on China's "campaign to increase participation in winter sports" related to its successful bid to host the 2022 Winter Olympics. Himself a novice, Hessler both takes to the slopes at some recently constructed ski resorts and has conversations with various members of the Olympic committee.
1249 days ago

by Hannah Fry
Fry reviews two books, "A History of Data Visualization and Graphic Communication" (Harvard) by Michael Friendly and Howard Wainer, and "How Charts Lie" by Alberto Cairo. She tracks the history of graphs to the 1620s in an attempt to accurately calculate the longitudinal distance from Toledo to Rome.
1249 days ago

by Cynthia Ozick
Evangeline has a group of friends that all went to library school together. There was one man, George, and three women, Evangeline, Ruby, and Olive. Although they were all "committed feminists, despised patriarchy, and loathed what they could instantly sense was male domination," George "had slept with all of them" and was "exempted from such despicable categories" that similar males were part of.
1249 days ago

by Jon Lee Anderson
Jon Lee Anderson travels to Brazil to interview Flordelis dos Santos, a celebrity pastor with her own Pentecostal church accused of murdering her husband, Anderson do Carmo. Flordelis became famous by making it out of one of Brazil's notorious favelas and adopting dozens of children from similar circumstances. But she has been accused of taking the children from households, and her husband Anderson do Carmo, murdered within their grounds, was himself one of these children that she adopted.
1249 days ago

by Camille Bordas
The narrator of this story is an adolescent girl whose brother died of cystic fibrosis when he was young. Her father struggles with depression and moves the family around every year or so for different jobs. She finds it difficult to make friends, until one day she manages to make one and winds up in the hospital because of it.
1249 days ago

by Sam Lipsyte
The narrator of this darkly comical short story is writing an apology letter for an egregious act he performed in the office. The thing is, he's not really sorry about it. He's been at the company so long that he knows "where the bodies are buried, metaphorically speaking" and uses this immunity to sneak through a weak apology, if we could call it one at all.
1252 days ago

by Bryan Washington
The narrator fosters a cat from his brother's girlfriend. The cat immediately takes to the narrator's boyfriend, Owen, even as their own relationship seems to be deteriorating. It's as if the cat is a replacement for the things that seem to be disappearing from his life, and he's not quite sure how to handle it all.
1252 days ago

by Adam Gopnik
Gopnick attends two events in New York City: a comedy club and a concert. Both are heavily influenced by the restrictions demanded by COVID-19, so he contemplates what these changes could mean for both the short and long term.
1254 days ago

by Louis Menand
Menand reviews Jess McHugh’s "Americanon," a list of the 13 books that would make up a "canon" of American writing. McHugh focuses largely on self-help books and the like that sold at ridiculous proportions. She criticizes them for being exclusive, which they certainly are, but he counters McHugh's argument implying her rejection of these books is itself a creed.
1254 days ago

by Nicholas Lemann
Lemann reviews Kenneth Whyte's "The Sack of Detroit: General Motors and the End of American Enterprise." Although it is largely about GM, it's also a biography of Ralph Nader, the now infamous leader of the movement to make motor vehicles safer, and make the government run more efficiently more generally.
1254 days ago

by Charles Duhigg
Duhigg reports on SPACs, or special-purpose acquisition companies, "which are among the fastest-growing financial instruments in the world." Although they are not quite mainstream, Duhigg looks at probably their most vocal, and well-known, champion: Chamath Palihapitiya. While some see SPACs as a way to bypass regulation and open up investing to ordinary people, others see them as a dangerous mechanism ready to pop at any moment.
1256 days ago

by Chris Pomorski
Hospitals, which once were founded entirely for nonprofit reasons, "are estimated to be closing at a rate of about thirty a year" in the United States. Pomorski indicates this is a symptom of hospitals being "regarded as a business like any other" with "at least a fifth of hospitals now run for profit." Pomorski looks at how this trend caused the failure and closure of Hahnemann University Hospital in Philadelphia and what it might mean for the future of healthcare in the United States.
1261 days ago

by Rachel Monroe
Monroe looks at the rise of ransomware cyber attacks and their influence on both tech and the broader public. The most recent of these attacks that demanded public attention was the shutdown of the Colonial Pipeline's network, causing fuel shortages across the Southeast. Monroe warns us that it's even more dire: "By 2015, the F.B.I estimated that the U.S. was subjected to a thousand ransomware attacks per day; the next year that number quadrupled."
1263 days ago

by Andrew Marantz
Whether from the Left or the Right, the general consensus is that the neoliberal era is coming to and end. Marantz reviews the realignment, or at least the attempt to do so, of the Democratic Party, specifically from the actions of the Justice Democrats. Although many may disagree with the changes in current politics, Marantz writes "Such seismic shifts appear to happen, on average, once a generation. If this pattern holds, then we're just about due for another one."
1268 days ago

by Adam Entous
Entous looks into how the "Havana Syndrome," a mysterious ailment that made American foreign diplomats have terrible headaches and confusion, spread to the White House. "Top officials in both the Trump and Biden Administrations privately suspect that Russia is responsible" and has "been aiming microwave-radiation devices at U.S. officials to collect intelligence from their computers and cell phones."
1270 days ago

by Said Sayrafiezadeh
A secretary at a small art studio in Aspen focused on Abstract Expressionism goes throughout his job disappointed with it, but also scared that it'll close down at any moment and he'll be out of a job. His boss asks him to write letters to potential buyers on an old typewriter, refusing to let him use the computer. He is bitter at this restriction, yet also manages to find solace in it and the odd quirks of his job.
1270 days ago

by Gideon Lewis-Kraus
The Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force was formally announced in the summer of 2020. They were tasked to "gather and analyze data from disparate agencies" and release a report in June 2021. Believers in U.F.O.s expected a bombshell report, while critics argued that it was a vastly inappropriate and negligent use of government funds. Lewis-Kraus tries to look at both sides of the story and remove the stigma around U.F.O.s that has cropped up in recent years.
1273 days ago

by Matthew Hutson
Hutson's piece is both a biography of a genius and an insightful looking at a curious phenomena: biological regeneration. Michael Levin, a development biologist, "argues that the cells in our bodies use bioelectricity to communicate and to make decisions among themselves about what they will become." That questions the belief that "genes are everything" and instead proposes that they work together to form our bodies.
1273 days ago

by Sam Knight
Knight reviews both the rise of Nicola Sturgeon and the Scottish National Party as the majority in the Scottish parliament. He writes that "Sturgeon embodies an apparent oxymoron: a left-of-center-nationalist." Support for Scottish independence "reached fifty-eight per cent" in the fall of 2020, and Sturgeon's approval rating during the pandemic and the travails of Brexit indicate that this support may only increase.
1273 days ago

by Nicholas Lemann
Many people perceived Liz Cheney being ousted from Republican Party leadership as the party's shift to relentless Trumpism. But Lemann argues that both parties, or at least the voters that actually vote and less the party leadership, are rejected the "aggressive use of American power" and "interventionism" that has dominated American foreign policy for the last decade.
1283 days ago

by Jill Lepore
Today, burnout is associated with the modern professional worker, having dedicated too much of their life to their job that they can not keep it going. But it wasn't always that way; in the 70s and 80s burnouts were often those with no life prospects and addicted to drugs or alcohol. Lepore looks at this cultural shift, as well as the present moment coming out of the pandemic, and questions if we are really unique in feeling burned out or if it has been a constant throughout human history.
1283 days ago

by Thomas McGuane
The narrator reflects on an affair he had with someone's wife. Joan was married to Roger, a decently wealthy real-estate broker and well-known in the area for his nickname, Tightly Held Krebs. The narrator regrets falling in love with Joan, and thinks about his father's advice about the couple he was intruding in: "I wouldn't piss on him if he was on fire. And I wouldn't trust the wife father than I could throw her."
1285 days ago

by Adam Gopnik
Gopnik looks at the book "The Mysterious Correspondent," recently brought into English. These are Proust's "nine stories, mostly fragmentary, mostly unpublished, that have only recently been re-discovered, appearing as something between juvenilia and a sketchbook." Gopnik is suspicious of modern culture's infatuation with Proust, and looks to analyze his life to contextualize this new book and the rest of Proust's work.
1285 days ago

by Winfred Rembert
The late Winfred Rembert was arrested in the 1960s during a civil-rights movement and was sent to prison, where he labored on chain gangs. When he was released in 1974, he began making art, "carving and painting memories from his youth onto leather." In this article, he reflects on the most horrific moments of his life and wants the reader "to understand that what happened to me was not so long ago."
1286 days ago

by David Sedaris
Sedaris writes a personal history of his relationship with his partner, Hugh, and how they have managed to be together for thirty years now. He provides wisdom such as "never, under any circumstances, look under the hood of your relationship," and asks questions about relationships that fail: "Don't people who feel vaguely unfulfilled in their relationships just have too much time on their hands?"
1287 days ago

by Ed Caesar
Although an estimated 1% of North Koreans have access to the Internet, the government has produced some of the most skilled hackers. In this deeply investigative reporting, Ed Caesar looks at how North Korea commits cybercrime to fund its weapons program. Countries like the US are clearly in agreement of the threat it poses to international order, as well has many large cybercrimes that have gone relatively unpunished, but we are unsure how to proceed forward in this emerging form of antagonism.
1292 days ago

by Margaret Atwood
Lizzie and Nell live in a run down house, without electricity, on the waterfront that has been passed down through their family. It appears to be a semi-apocalyptic future, where they have to "discourage invaders" and have to make sure mice don't overrun their home. The curious thing is that there seem to be others across the river that live with electricity and running water, yet Nell's and Lizzie's phones still work.
1293 days ago

by Pankaj Mishra
Mishra reviews the new, authorized biography of Edward Said, "Places of Mind" (Farrar, Straus & Giroux) by Timonthy Brennan. It looks heavily at the emergence of Said's most famous work, "Orientalism," and the influence it had on intellectual and public thought until today.
1293 days ago

by Margaret Talbot
Home economics - what we think of as cooking, sewing, household cleaning, etc. - became a core class in middle and high schools across the country at the turn of the 20th century. Talbot reviews Danielle Dreilinger's new book, "The Secret History of Home Economics: How Trailblazing Women Harnessed the Power of Home and Changed the Way We Live" (Norton).
1294 days ago

by Christine Kenneally
As devices get smaller and smaller with more powerful and efficient microchips, neurotechnology seems to loom closer on the horizon. But it's hard to believe that any sane human would willingly place microchips in their head unless they are incredibly well tested or they are confronted with an existential problem. Kenneally reports on the latter: patients struggling with life-endangering epileptic seizures were presented with a neural device that can predict oncoming episodes. The implications are both pragmatic and philosophical, and the responses seem mixed.
1295 days ago

by John Seabrook
Although certainly not as commanding as an automobile, the electric scooter has become a ubiquitous form of transportation in cities across the globe. But cities have reacted differently to their emergence: some restricted them from the onset and gradually opened up while others opened their arms wide and imposed stricter regulations over time. Seabrook looks at how scooters have changed transit in New York City, especially during the pandemic, and offers some insight into what the future may bring.
1295 days ago

by Evan Osnos
As a large part of America becomes concerned with some of the fundamental building blocks of our democracy, Biden has to somehow appease both the progressive and conservative sides of his party. He created a Presidential Commission on April 9th, 2021 to "study the prospect of changing the [Supreme] Court's composition and culture." It brings back an old debate in American politics dating back to F.D.R.
1295 days ago

by Sterling HolyWhiteMountain
The narrator meets "his love," Allie, while off at the university. He's had plenty of flings with girls in the past, but Allie is the first girl his Mother and Grandmother would be proud of. That they are both Native American brings them together at first, but as they both grow more and more into university life, their radically different personalities push them apart.
1308 days ago

by Jerome Groopman
Groopman reviews Peter Hotez's new book, "Preventing the Next Pandemic" (John Hopkins). In it, Hotez looks at how vaccine distribution declines drastically in conflict areas, piling onto the problems that people are already facing. He also looks at the rise of the "anti-vaccine camp" and what that means in an increasingly globalized context.
1314 days ago

by Ian Frazier
In the middle of a global pandemic, gun-related deaths in New York City increased by 88%. 1,531 shootings occurred in New York City alone in 2020. Ian Frazier investigates what could be contributing to this increase. He interviews Shaina Harrison, a member of the organization New Yorkers Against Gun Violence (N.Y.A.G.V.) on how she addresses these issues in the classroom.
1316 days ago

by Kathryn Schulz
In today's world, if somebody were to be blindfolded, brought to a random place across the globe, and told to find their way home, they would most likely have no idea which direction or distance they need to travel. For many animals, this seems to be an innate ability that continues to stump researchers. In this article, Schulz reviews the spectacular, navigational abilities of animals, from birds to crabs to ants, and even to household cats. She ends by reflecting on how an ever-expanding human population is affecting these animals, as well as how technology has changed our own abilities.
1323 days ago

by Rachel Aviv
Elizabeth Loftus performed a revolutionary experiment that changed how psychologists viewed memory; she showed that false memories of being lost in a mall as a child could be implanted in people's minds when they were older. Showing that memory was not a fixed structure, but could change over years and new experiences, brought Loftus to testify in court for defendants accused of past crimes. While crucial for proving innocence for some, her testimonies were also used to defend dubious clients such as Harvey Weinstein and Martha Stewart.
1323 days ago

by Souvankham Thammavongsa
The narrator of this story is a child talking about his parents' relationship. His mother is beautiful and his father is an athletic trainer who takes his ring off at the gym to attract a female clientele. The kid is brought along on a first date, a harmless tea, with one of his clients.
1335 days ago

by Elizabeth Kolbert
Kolbert reviews two books: "Mine! How the Hidden Rules of Ownership Control Our Lives" by Michael Heller and James Salzman, and "Owned: Property, Privacy, and the New Digital Serfdom" by Joshua A.T. Fairfield. In the review, she analyzes how property rights can vary significantly based on the property in question, especially when it's related to emerging technologies.
1340 days ago

by Jane Mayer
The Trump Organization is under an investigation led by Cyrus Vance, Jr., the Manhattan District Attorney. As much as it is a profile on Vance as it is on Trump, this article investigates what the chances are of a success from the prosecution.
1343 days ago

by Nicholas Lemann
The American Rescue Plan signals a change in the Democratic Party's leadership and how they represent ordinary Americans in government. This plan does not focus on key financial, elite sectors, nor does it focus on minority groups. It includes a direct check and a "guaranteed family-income program" to any qualifying American, something that the opposition will find hard to caricature. It might also be an "appetizer" for Biden's Build Back Better infrastructure plan in the months to come.
1347 days ago

by Peter Hessler
Hessler's reports on the coronavirus pandemic while living in China have been nothing short of spectacular since March, 2020. From the best of our scientific knowledge so far, the virus seemed to have spread from a market in Wuhan, leading our very own President to label it the pejorative "China Virus." But beneath the veneer of propaganda, what has the pandemic been like on the other side of the world? Hessler takes the perspective of a few Chinese entrepreneurs, who have profited greatly and been in shock of America's appalling response to the crisis.
1352 days ago

by Jelani Cobb
There have been many national, political parties to rise and fall in the history of the United States. But for the past century, the current Democratic and Republican parties have survived by radically changing their platforms as the priorities of the nation changed. Cobb argues that by doubling down on predominantly older, White, Southern America, the Republican Party may be digging a hole too deep to climb out of.
1352 days ago

by James Wood
In his review of Kazuo Ishiguro's new novel, "Klara and the Sun," Wood categorizes the main style as "estrangement." The unreliable narrator, common in Ishiguro's works, views her futuristic society as a strange world with "sinister patterns of selection."
1353 days ago

by Dexter Filkins
In this deeply investigated report, Filkins travels to Afghanistan to discuss the future of the country with both Taliban leaders and the current, elected government. Peace talks began last September in Doha, Qatar between the opposing forces. The Trump Administration bypassed the Afghan government to negotiate directly with the Taliban with the ethos of "just get out." The incoming Biden Administration must decide how to end the American intervention of the past 20 years.
1353 days ago

by Jhumpa Lahiri
The narrator often bumps into a man in her neighborhood that she could imagine sharing her life with. Although she lives alone, not only is the man married with a family, he's married to one of her friends. Their interactions are flirty and certainly push boundaries; they both know the game they are playing. One day she finds the urge to push it further, but relationships haven't always worked out for her in the past.
1354 days ago

by Allegra Goodman
Andrea is the mother of two sons, one off at college and the other a senior in high school applying to college. She is a college counselor herself and wants to help her son write his essays, but he refuses. Her husband, Steve, is living out the final days as an editor at his company, which is shifting to online material. They are the typical, middle-class American family.
1356 days ago

by Ian Urbina
In this deeply investigated piece, Urbina reports on the fishing industry of Gambia. On the surface, it may not seem to be the most immediate concern for Americans in the midst of a global pandemic, but the story of this small African country represents a global trend. Chinese investment from the Belt and Road Initiative built factories in Gambia to process fish meal, which is then sent to Western countries to sustain the growing dependence on aquaculture. Industrialization comes with a price. Are Gambians and the rest of the world willing to accept it?
1359 days ago

by Amy Davidson Sorkin
In this short column, Davidson Sorkin reviews the effectiveness and availability of the COVID-19 vaccines, as well as what that means for the current and future state of the country.
1359 days ago

by Amanda Petrusich
Petrusich reviews Julien Baker's music. She looks into her past as growing up in a devout Christian household, coming out as gay at seventeen, and struggling with substance abuse. She says that one of Baker's central themes, self-obliteration, "has never been a subject of greater obsession."
1359 days ago

by Nick Paumgarten
Outdoor dining has been the only way many restaurants have made it through the COVID-19 pandemic. But in many states and cities that have been hit hard by the virus, restrictions and regulations have made it very difficult to stay open. Paumgarten looks at NYC and many of the restaurant owners that have struggled through these trying times.
1359 days ago

by Ada Ferrer
In this short memoir, Ferrer recounts her mother's decision to emigrate to the United States after the Cuban Revolution, leaving a son behind. She writes about how difficult it must have been for her mother at first, and then the real hardships her family endured when the son finally came to live with her family.
1359 days ago

by Siddhartha Mukherjee
Mukherjee asks the questions that a lot of us are thinking about these days: why are some places hit much harder by the COVID pandemic than others? Could it be age, underreporting, government action, human immunology, or a mix of all of these factors? Mukherjee explores the science and data behind each of these possibilities.
1366 days ago

by Margaret Talbot
Many people envision themselves doing some other career in their lives. But it's very difficult to start over from scratch after we have built years and years of knowledge around one thing. Talbot reflects on learning new things that we will never master and why that may be useful in some way.
1369 days ago

by Graham Smith
A doctor comes out of retirement to support his local hospital in the midst of the global pandemic. As he drives to work, he reflects on his life, the people who had stood out and who had passed away. He fixates on his tenth birthday party, where only the children and mothers attend, except for a one Dr. Henderson.
1369 days ago

by Ben Okri
A man becomes obsessed with the fact that strangers cross the street to avoid him. He doesn't understand if it's his stature, gender, or what. He decides to begin wearing a mask, appalling his workmates and manager, but it seems to have the effect he was looking for.
1387 days ago

by Jill Lepore
Zero-days are software or hardware flaws "for which there is no existing patch." It this article, Lepore reviews the book "This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends," which investigates the rise of the internet and the cyber security issues that it raises.
1387 days ago

by Sarah Stillman
Immigration policy is largely controlled by the executive branch of government and the federal agencies that are under its command. The Trump administration, with die-hard anti-immigration figures like Stephen Miller, created a cloud of confusing and dangerous measures that mostly were hidden from public view. Stillman interviews people directly affected by these measures, as well as organizations hoping to track them in the hope of reversing any harmful policies.
1389 days ago

by Kelefa Sanneh
In the 1950s and 60s, the term "Black capitalism' became popular. It was arguably brought into the public sphere by Richard Nixon, who wanted to appeal to conservative Black voters. Floyd McKissick would take this another step further and try to build a Black capitalist utopia in North Carolina. It was doomed to fail.
1392 days ago

by Joshua Yaffa
Yaffa frames the international struggle to develop a COVID-19 vaccine as a race. This is indicated by the name of Russia's state-funded vaccine: Sputnik V. To win this race, he documents how Russian scientists cut corners to get the vaccine out. But can those shortcuts take away from the efficacy of it?
1392 days ago

by Lauren Groff
A mother tells her children to pretend it's just an ordinary day. The siblings seem to be half joking with each other about an inside joke, but it soon turns much more dire. The father had physically abused them, and shoved a gun into the mother's mouth, right before the children's eyes. Now they are trying to escape a world designed for the subjugation of women and the sadistic will of men.
1394 days ago

by John Seabrook
For anybody who worked in an office before the onset of the pandemic, especially tech-oriented companies, there was an emphasis on open space. This was meant to spark collaboration, but it soon turned into a way to reduce real estate costs for businesses. Many companies were in the process of turning away from it. In this article, Seabrook explores the possibilities for going back to work after the pandemic: what will the future of the office look like?
1394 days ago

by Jon Lee Anderson
Kenyan wildlife has been on a steep decline since the 20th century. Conservation has tended to fall prey to economic development. Internationally, many see this as the fault of the locals, who don't see the importance of ecology. But dedicated environmentalists like Paula Kahumbu argue that there has always been support from Kenyans, but they have been drowned out by business and money. Her TV shows, watched by a majority of Kenyans, show that the support is there, it just needs to be mobilized.
1394 days ago

by Jane Mayer
Politics has always been, and will always be, a dynamic game. Parties shift and change their priorities as voters' perspectives change. But Mayer argues that after the capitol riot, the Republican party is at a crucial crossroads. Mitch McConnell still wields power as minority leader, and how he responds to Trump's lingering influence will change the face of the party for years to come.
1398 days ago

by Luke Mogelson
In this comprehensive account of what is becoming known as the capitol "riot", Mogelson argues that it wasn't a one-off fluke but something that many conservatives had been working towards for the past couple months. There were many smaller events within state legislatures, Michigan is the best example, where right-wing groups have been stoking animosity and resentment towards the democratic process. From the Proud Boys to QAnon supporters, Mogelson tries to paint a picture of what we are up against for the next couple years at least.
1400 days ago

by Andrea Lee
Pianon and Floristella are two older Italian men who have retired in Madagascar. They are both highly regarded by the locals, are acquaintances, and have assimilated very well into the culture. A much younger, beautiful woman, Noelline, soon comes between them as they both fall helplessly in love. But Noelline seems to be fully aware of the game that she is playing.
1400 days ago

by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
In this brief autobiographical essay, Villavicencio recounts her upbringing as an undocumented immigrant in the United States. Her parents immigrated from Ecuador when she was a small child and established themselves in New York City before sending for her at five years old. Although they lived on the edge of poverty, they strived for a better life for their children. Villavicencio "succeeded" in graduating as valedictorian, going to Harvard, and become a renown writer. Does that mean she has been fulfilled by the American Dream?
1403 days ago

by Dorothy Wickenden
History pages are filled with the named heroes that fought for women's rights and the emancipation of slavery in the mid 19th century. But what may strike closer to home for the majority of Americans, are those who lived more-or-less ordinary lives and who strived for freedom under the confines of society. Wickenden writes about Frances A. Seward, a woman who fought for freedom while fitting within the social norms she lived within, painting a fuller picture of our nation's history.
1404 days ago

by Lawrence Wright
This lengthy read is the only piece of reporting in the January double issue of The New Yorker, signifying how important a piece it really is. Wright takes us back to the early days of the pandemic and pieces together our nation's response. He talks about the scientists who developed the vaccine, the public health officials scrambling to understand the virus, the healthcare workers on the front line as cases soared, and the dysfunctional Presidential Administration that has caused the deaths of tens to hundreds of thousands of Americans through its ineptitude and outright deceit.
1417 days ago

by Anand Gopal
Since the ancient Romans, we have considered there to be a set of morals surrounding warfare. What we consider to be moral or justified might change from civilization to civilization, but we have, more or less, always thought there to be some set of rules under which we wage war. Anand Gopal looks at the Syrian War and Neil Renic's new book, "Asymmetric Killing: Risk Avoidance, Just War, and the Warrior Ethos" (Oxford) to understand what we now see as ethical in conflicts now decided by remote bombing and targeted interventions.
1431 days ago

by Joshua Rothman
There is both great pleasure and crippling anxiety when we imagine all of the possibilites our lives could take. What if we had made different choices? What if we were smarter, more athletic, better looking? Rothman reviews Andrew H. Miller's new book "On Not Being Someone Else: Tales of Our Unled Lives" (Harvard) and thinks about why imagining ourselves as different people is so important to us.
1432 days ago

by Ben Taub
A few years ago, global news exploded with the story of a murdered journalist in Malta - an act apparently carried out by the country's own government. What was once a mostly unknown island in the Mediterranean Sea soon fell into the international spotlight. Daphne Caruana Galizia had exposed rampant corruption in her island's government and payed an awful price. Ben Taub interviews her sons and others associated both with Daphne's death and Malta's corruption more broadly.
1433 days ago

by Mark O'Connell
Animated films are a multi-billion dollar industry, but they are largely dominated by the big brands of Disney, Pixar, etc. These films are often completely computerized. Some would argue that this takes away from the freedom of artistic creation. A smaller studio named Cartoon Saloon looks to challenge this shift by producing hand-drawn animated movies, believing they will be successful because they are the timeless "language of painting and illustration, rather than the language of the latest technology."
1435 days ago

by Nicola Twilley
By now, we are all aware that improperly using antibiotics produces bacteria that can resist the same antibiotics that were once used to kill it. Phages are a type of virus that may help us fight these new strands of bacteria. They are possibly the most populous organism on the planet, but their discovery was only recently, and there has not been much institutional effort to test and verify its effectiveness.
1435 days ago

by Paul Theroux
An older man grapples with leaving his life behind and moving into a retirement home. His youthful energy is restored when a group of kids from the neighborhood come to visit him. He tells them stories about his past and dishes out cookies to them. He's upset when they don't show up for a couple days, realizing his loneliness. When they show back up, something is wrong, however, and he directs his energy towards helping them out.
1441 days ago

by Patricia Lockwood
Lockwood's story is a collection of disparate thoughts that manage to come together to tell the story of a woman pushed by society to give birth to a child with birth defects. She is concerned about her own health and that of the baby and considers abortion. She is pressured by the rural, Ohioan society to go through with the birth no matter what. Even the woman's father believes this until he realizes that the baby might kill her.
1441 days ago

by Nathan Heller
Since the turn of the 20th century, most industries have seen a massive shift to towards labor outsourcing to developing countries; wages are much lower, and the cost-efficiency leads to better profit margins for capitalists. Now, with the proliferation of the internet and instant communication across the globe, a new market for virtual assistants is emerging. Is it moral? Ethical? Simply good-for-business? No matter our opinions, the shift is happening as we speak, and we should think about what it means for the future.
1446 days ago

by Charles Duhigg
The WeWork scandal is now well-known throughout society, but Charles Duhigg wants to know how something like this could have happened. By interviewing board members, executives, and employees from the company, he paints a scary picture: venture capitalism has changed dramatically in recent years. An industry that once started off with admirers from both business and academia alike has shifted into another beast entirely. By trying to find the next "unicorn," venture capitalists will fight to the bitter end, destroying nearly everything in their path, just to collect that profit.
1450 days ago

by Alexis Okeowo
We often associate poor sanitation and extreme poverty with developing countries. The United States, as one of the wealthiest countries on the planet, certainly has already eradicated these issues. But the truth is very different; in rural Alabama, inadequate sewage systems and systematic racism and poverty plague the lives of residents in many counties. Okeowo looks specifically at Lowndes County and the lives of a few individuals who have gotten the courage to speak out against the system and their living conditions.
1454 days ago

by Evan Osnos
Osnos reports on what has become an increasingly popular headline in the media: will the 2020 election results lead to violence? He shows that there is evidence to think that it's possible, as well as prominent academics and politicians warning that unless we alter our course, we could see dire consequences. But how much of this is alarmist? Could it be that the American public is more interested in stories like this than the actual possibility of violence breaking out?
1464 days ago

by George Saunders
A haunting story of a society confined to an underground bunker, who practice theater for the Visitors who never show. They are a violent group with bizarre social norms. They beat people to death who speak against the principles that they have assumed over time, but those principles seem to be based on lies.
1471 days ago

by Ronan Farrow
In a system of checks and balances, what are the checks on law enforcement, especially those at the highest level? Being that so much information is considered confidential in agencies like the C.I.A. and the F.B.I., it's up to internal whistle-blowers to surface any wrong-doing. But in recent years, it seems that whistle-blowers have been constantly attacked by those around them. That's the case of Mark McConnell and what he considers to be a "criminal conspiracy" perpetrated by the C.I.A. and the F.B.I.
1471 days ago

by Barack Obama
Obama reflects on the most influential piece of legislation passed by his administration. Universal healthcare has been pushed by progressives for decades, and no president had ever gotten as close as Barack Obama to achieving it. However, many argue that he fell short and succumbed to pressure from powerful lobbyists and right-wing groups and removed the most crucial piece of healthcare reform: a public option. Hearing the unfiltered view of the President helps put it into perspective.
1471 days ago

by Daniel Alarcón
Chile is known internationally as one of the wealthiest and most stable South American countries. The protests that erupted from hikes on metro price tickets, and that later become protests for much, much more, have changed the way the world perceives Chile drastically. High school students led the initial protests that led to millions of people clashing with police. Massive economic inequality, which was hidden behind apparent material wealth, is now in the forefront of the Chilean political agenda.
1500 days ago

by Joseph O'Neill
An Irish immigrant contemplates on her life in America. She is a middle class businesswoman living in New York. A boy in her daughter's class harasses her daughter, and she is forced to call the school. It turns out that the boy is also from an immigrant family, but of a lower class, and she reflects on how her identity affects her perspective of the situation.
1500 days ago

by Alec MacGillis
Should schools reopen or should they remain closed? Should we put faith in our political leaders or in the data that has been reported from other countries? Should we risk opening schools so that children aren't left with months of missing education that can negatively influence their lives for years to come? Or should we worry about the teachers who will risk their lives, and that of their families, to go to in-person classrooms with children whose parents might night be following health guidelines? MacGillis looks deeply at all of these questions.
1515 days ago

by Nicole Krauss
A girl in her late teens enters a boarding home with a couple other girls about her age. They are all finishing up school, having come from various places around the world. One of the girls, Soraya, is much more promiscuous than the others. But the frivolity with which she approaches her relationships soon changes to a different form.
1519 days ago

by Lorrie Moore
A woman communicates with her elderly father thrugh her computer as he is sick with COVID-19 and quarantined in the hospital. She and her sisters approach the situation light-heartedly, as does her father, but real life can be much more serious.
1520 days ago

by Jeffrey Toobin
Electing a government through democracy, in theory, is incredible. It allows each and every one of us to caste a vote for the candidate we see most fit to run for office. In reality, however, the act of actually casting your vote is more difficult than it seems. Individual states have different laws for how to do so (what sort of identification you need, how to send it through the mail, etc.). In the midst of the COVID-19 crisis, this fragile system could be very malleable, especially when the sitting President is indicating over and over that there will be fraud. Toobin looks at these claims and the possible outcomes of the election via a couple different perspectives.
1530 days ago

by Laura Secor
Immigration and the penitentiary system are two things that progressive Americans absolutely know need to be reformed. Sirous Asgari, an Iranian scientist, is pressured to become an F.B.I. informant. He doesn't play ball and has the entire system against him. He's thrown into prison for potential trade secrets (from which he is cleared) and then is thrown into the custody of ICE and a dark system that is hidden from the view of common, American citizens.
1535 days ago

by Thomas Mallon
The upcoming November elections have been framed as a decision to turn back to "normal." Is that what the American people want? Mallon looks at a similar election in 1920, following WWI and the Spanish Flu, not to mention constant racist attacks on Black Americans and European immigrants, that may give us a historical context.
1536 days ago

by Joshua Yaffa
We hear over and over that Russia is influencing our democracy, as if we were still in the grip of the Cold War. We hear of troll farms online and disinformation campaigns. But could it be that our focus on foreign interference is masking the damage that we are doing to our own democracy?
1538 days ago

by Evan Osnos
Joe Biden built his career as a centrist politician. He longs for the time where Americans came from both sides of the aisle to get legislation through. But, we must remember that much of American history is shrouded in discriminatory policies domestically and unspeakable ones internationally. Biden is aware of the progressives he must court, as well as the center-right that may vote for him. Can that bring him to victory in November?
1540 days ago

by Madhuri Vijay
A woman falls in love with an older man, and then adopts a child through dubious means. The young girl is unstable, and the woman must figure out how to become a mother, if possible.
1562 days ago

by Louis Menand
Joseph McCarthy's communist witch hunt was really a massive ploy. He was despised by his fellow Senators, who knew his actions were wrong, but were afraid to speak up against the wave of anti-Communism.
1570 days ago

by Bryan Washington
A guy's boyfriend leaves to go spend time with his dying father. His mother, who is long divorced from the father, leaves with the boyfriend. They get to know each other, even though they aren't the most likely couple.
1571 days ago

by William Finnegan
The protests of this summer (2020) have called for the strong reform, budget cuts, and dismantling of police forces. But police forces have a way of getting what they want.
1572 days ago

by Ed Caesar
A group of eccentric technologists buy a bunker in Germany and setup a business that securely hosts web sites underground. The problem is that it's hosting illicit and illegal content.
1574 days ago

by Calvin Trillin
A passenger on a flight spots Martin Luther King Jr. nearby. He overhears a conversation with a white, upper-class male that asks if MLK's tactics are for the good of society.
1583 days ago