Below, our favorite stories of the week.
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1. Revenge of the Forgotten Class
Alec MacGillis | ProPublica | Nov. 10, 2016 | 17 minutes (4,437 words)
MacGillis talks to white workers in the small towns and cities of the Rust Belt, many of whom voted for Democrats in previous elections, but decided to vote for Trump in 2016.
2. Autocracy: Rules for Survival
Masha Gessen | New York Review of Books | Nov. 10, 2016 | 10 minutes (2,554 words)
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.
3. An American in a Strange Land
Jim Yardley | The New York Times | Nov. 4, 2016 | 24 minutes (6,007 words)
After living abroad in cities like Beijing, New Delhi, and Rome and watching the United States from afar for more than a decade, correspondent Jim Yardley returns to find a country he doesn’t recognize.
4. What It Took
Michael Kruse | Politico | Nov. 6, 2016 | 25 minutes (6,372 words)
An outstanding history of Hillary Clinton’s career—and the compromises and concessions she had to make along the way.
5. Venezuela, a Failing State
William Finnegan | New Yorker | Nov. 7, 2016 | 42 minutes (10,608 words)
Once the richest country in South America, it now has the world’s highest inflation rate and is plagued by hunger and violent crime. How did this happen?