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A Traitor to the Traitors
The Confederate general James Longstreet became a champion of Reconstruction. Why?
The Men Who Started the War
John Brown and the Secret Six-the abolitionists who funded the raid on Harpers Ferryconfronted a question as old as America: When is violence justified?
The Years of Jubilee
In 1871, the choir of the struggling Fisk University engaged in a gambit to save the school: It decided to go on a singing tour of America. The choir achieved more than its members could have imagined.
The Annotated Frederick Douglass
In 1866, the famous abolitionist laid out his vision for radically reshaping America in the pages of The Atlantic.
The Archive of Emancipation
In the papers of the Freedmen's Bureau, I found the hopes and disappointments of a people on the cusp of freedom-including my own family's.
The Atlantic and Reconstruction
What we got wrong in 1901
The Revolution Never Ended
The federal government abandoned Reconstruction in 1877, but Black people didn't give up on the moment's promise.
The Questions That Most Need Asking
“Reconstruction,” by Frederick Douglass, appeared in the December 1866 issue of this magazine. It was the most important article that The Atlantic published in the immediate postwar era. It was also, for its time, unusually concise, coming in at a mere 2,703 words.
What Is Comedy For?
The question has never been harder to answer.
Madonna Forever
Why the artist keeps scandalizing each generation anew
The Smartest Man Who Ever Lived
A novelist transforms the physicist John von Neumann into a scientific demon
WHAT ΜΙΤΤ RΟΜΝΕΥ SAW ΙΝ ΤΗE SENATE
BEHIND CLOSED DOORS, THE HYPOCRISY AND CYNICISM ARE EVEN WORSE THAN YOU THINK
Her?
No one seems to think Kamala Harris is ready to be president. Here's what they're missing.
We Are Not at War.We Are at Work.
RUNNING THE WASHINGTON POST IN DONALD TRUMP'S D.C.
THE PATRIOT
What does a general do when the commander in chief undermines the Constitution?
BLACK SUCCESS, WHITE BACKLASH
Black prosperity has provoked white resentment that can make life exhausting for people of color-and it has led to the undoing of policies that have nurtured Black advancement
Zadie Smith Has Doubts About Fiction
In her ambitious new novel, she asks whether we expect too much of the genre.
The Man Who Became Uncle Tom
Harriet Beecher Stowe said that Josiah Henson's life had inspired her most famous character. But Henson longed to be recognized by his own name, and for his own achievements.
Life After "I Do"
George Eliot's subversive vision of marriage
The Other Naomi
A left-wing author finds herself constantly confused with a right-wing conspiracist.
I, Sly
Sly Stone tells his story.
THE FINAL DAYS
JOE BIDEN WAS DETERMINED TO GET OUT OF AFGHANISTAN-NO MATTER THE COST
The Joy and the Funk and the Mire
The critic dream hampton thinks hip-hop is broken. But she can't stop trying to fix it.
THE PRIME MINISTER and THE MOONIES
THE BIZARRE STORY BEHIND THE ASSASSINATION OF SHINZO ABE
Jenisha From Kentucky
I came to New York sure of one thing-that no one could ever know my past.
NIXON BETWEEN THE LINES
Alone in his study, ballpoint pen in hand, the president revealed himself in the margins of his books.
TRUMP ON TRIAL
The drama now unfolding will make for perhaps the most surreal presidential-election cycle in American history. How will it end?
A Sunnier Edvard Munch
A new exhibition offers a counterpoint to The Scream.
The Man Who Transformed American Theater
How August Wilson became one of the country's most influential playwrights
Owls Aren't That Smart
But they have uncanny powers.