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Dispatches: America Without God
As religious faith has declined, ideological intensity has risen. Will the quest for secular redemption through politics doom the American idea?
Looking Up
When you are an ant, the stakes are always high. There are those who would eat you—birds, snakes, bigger bugs—and those who could trample you and your environment in a single sneakered step. These enormous beings may not mean you any harm, but it is impact, not intention, that matters most.
Private Schools Are Indefensible
The Gulf between how rich kids and poor kids are educated in America is obscene.
The Relentless Philip Roth
In his life as in his fiction, the author pursued the shameful, the libidinous, the repellent.
Bring Back The Nervous Breakdown
It used to be okay to admit that the world had simply become too much.
Noisy, Ugly, and Addictive
Hyper pop could become the countercultural sound of the 2020s.
A Forgotten Founder
Prince Hall was a free african american in Boston at a time of revolutionary fervor— and a transformative figure whose story deserves to be reinserted into the tale of America's creation.
The Second Career of Martellus Bennett
The former NFL tight end writes the kind of children’s books he would have loved as a kid.
The Committee on Life and Death
As COVID-19 has overwhelmed hospitals, the lack of clear bioethical guidelines has meant that doctors have had to make wrenching life-and-death decisions on the fly. The result has been chaos and unnecessary suffering, among both patients and clinicians. As the country prepares to distribute vaccines, we’re at risk of reprising this chaos.
The Covid-19 Manhattan Project
Never have so many researchers trained their minds on a single problem in so brief a time. Science will never be the same.
Jeans Now, Pay Later
Are the new online services that allow you to buy just about anything in installments—interest-free—too good to be true?
China's Rebel Historians
Defiant researchers chronicle a past that the Communist Party grows ever more intent on erasing.
School Wasn't So Great Before Covid, Either
Yes, remote schooling has been a misery—but it’s offering a rare chance to rethink early education entirely.
THE HISTORIAN WHO SEES THE FUTURE
PETER TURCHIN BELIEVES HE HAS DISCOVERED IRON LAWS THAT DICTATE THE RISE AND FALL OF CIVILIZATIONS. HE PREDICTS A DIRE DECADE FOR THE UNITED STATES.
Death Of A Small Business
“I’m more than just my store,” my father told me. And yet, for nearly his entire adult life, all of his decisions had argued the opposite.
The Many Lives of Adrienne Rich
Praised by W. H. Auden as neat and modest, she vowed to be passionate and radical instead.
The Bible Without Miracles
Thomas Jefferson preferred Jesus’s teachings to his supernatural acts—and edited his copy of the New Testament accordingly.
Last Exit
Donald Trump’s first term was characterized by theft, lies, corruption, and the incitement of violence. A second term could spell the end of American democracy.
Why We're Afraid of Bats
On how we know—and how we learn— what to fear
Fluffing Your Own Nest
Can happiness be found in home improvement?
Why British Police Shows Are Better
When you take away guns and shootings, you have more time to explore grief, guilt, and the psychological complexity of crime.
The WeWork Guy's Guide to Striking It Rich
Adam Neumann may be out of a job, but his wild rise is standard operating procedure in Silicon Valley.
STILL FALLING FOR IT
In 1957, Elia Kazan’s A Face in the Crowd warned America that a populist demagogue could use mass media to accumulate dangerous quantities of power.
OH, IT WAS NOTHING
Why Kamala Harris is caught between self-effacement and self-assertion
Nicola Gratteri – MOB Justice
An Italian prosecutor takes on his country’s most powerful crime syndicate.
Claudia Rankine's Quest for Racial Dialogue
Is her focus on the personal out of step with the racial politics of our moment?
Ever Thought About Breaking Free, Abandoning Your Responsabilities, Running Away From Your Life?
Toby Dorr's Great Escape
What Is MasterClass Actually Selling?
The Ads are everywhere: You can learn to serve like Serena Williams, write like Margaret Atwood, act like Natalie Portman. But what MasterClass really delivers is something altoguether different.
The Mythology Of Racial Progress
Believing that things are always getting better actually makes them worse.
Lying as an Art Form
Elena Ferrante’s new novel about adolescence explores the power of fictions.