A personal essay in which Russian emigre Masha Gessen ruminates on the culture’s tendency to privilege those who’ve suffered for a lack of choice — in becoming refugees, in picking their gender — and the choices (her own, and those of her parents and ancestors) that have impacted her life.
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Posted inBooks, Current Events, Member Pick, Story
Putin’s Rasputin
Journalist Amos Barshad meets with “Putin whisperer” Aleksandr Dugin to try to understand how a shadowy advisor exerts influence.
Posted inNonfiction
Longreads Best of 2018: All of Our No. 1 Story Picks
Here’s every story that was chosen as No. 1 in our weekly Top 5 email.
Posted inCommentary, Nonfiction, Uncategorized
When Richard Nixon Declared War on the Media
Jim Acosta isn’t the first reporter to be barred from the White House—when Stuart Loory reported on the possibility that Richard Nixon was bilking taxpayers, he found himself on the president’s enemies list.
Posted inNonfiction, Top 5
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week, we’re sharing stories from Masha Gessen, Molly Osberg, T. S. Mendola, Alexander Chee, and George Murray.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes, Unapologetic Women
Decisions, Decisions
Masha Gessen considers the nature of choice, for immigrants and trans people.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes, Unapologetic Women
‘Continue Panicking’: Samantha Bee’s Interview with Journalist Masha Gessen
“Really it’s the nuclear holocaust I’m worried about.” One of my essay selections for Longreads Best of 2016 was by Masha Gessen, the Russian-American journalist and author of 2016’s The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin, whose “Autocracy: Rules for Survival” in the New York Review of Books revealed in stark […]
Posted inBlog Post, Current Events, Nonfiction
When You’re Broken by Breaking News
If reporting becomes excessive, it can do more harm than good.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Autocracy: Rules for Survival
Russian emigree Masha Gessen, author of The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin, offers sobering pointers on how to survive under—and stand in uncompromising resistance to—the rule of a totalitarian autocrat.
Posted inNonfiction, Reading List
Why We Resist: Seven Stories About Protest
There are stories here about the Native-led protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline, folks standing up to Donald Trump and his white supremacist cronies, and prisoners striking against their miserable living conditions in a racist system.
