Queens of Infamy: The Reign of Catherine de’ Medici By Anne Thériault Feature When your husband and male heirs are too useless or too dead to rule, you have to take matters into your own poison-gloved hands.
To Heil, or Not To Heil, When Traveling in the Third Reich By Longreads Feature One of the first decisions any tourist had to make when crossing the German border in the mid-1930s was whether or not to “Heil Hitler.”
The Return of the Face By Adrian Daub Feature Physiognomy is a discarded 19th-century pseudoscience. Why can’t we stop practicing it?
The Gilded Age of (Unpaid) Internet Writing By Rebecca Schuman Feature How ’90s webzines heralded the best — and worst — of today’s online media landscape.
Queens of Infamy: The Rise of Catherine de’ Medici By Anne Thériault Feature Kings and popes thought she was their pawn. The Merchant’s Daughter begged to differ.
‘The Very Top Guy in the Stasi was Personally Involved in Figuring Out How to Destroy Punk.’ By Will Hermes Feature Author Tim Mohr talks about East Germany’s dissident punk rock scene, and its role in bringing down the Berlin Wall in 1989 — the story behind his remarkable new book, ‘Burning Down The Haus.’
Mr. Rogers vs. the Superheroes By Longreads Feature One of the few things that could raise anger — real, intense anger — in Mister Rogers was the willful misleading of children. Superheroes, he thought, were the worst culprits.
How Offshore Banking Destroyed Everything By Aaron Gilbreath Highlight This is the story of how a handfull of mega-rich ended up hoarding most of the world’s wealth.
A Trip to Tolstoy Farm By Jordan Michael Smith Feature Even if one of the last surviving Tolstoyan communes has fallen short of Leo Tolstoy’s ideals, it’s still turned into something meaningful. It’s a place for people who don’t want to be found.
The Ugly History of Beautiful Things: Perfume By Katy Kelleher Feature Sometimes it takes a touch of darkness to create something alluring.
Above It All: How the Court Got So Supreme By Longreads Feature Secrecy and speechifying, collegiality and hierarchy, exceptionalism and opulence on the Supreme Court.
A History of American Protest Music: Which Side Are You On? By Tom Maxwell Feature Just as we were in the 1930s and ’60s, America is suffering a moral crisis. We have to decide which side we are on: hate and exclusion, or justice, inclusion, and democracy?
An Inquiry Into Abuse By Elon Green Feature Allegations that Richard Nixon beat his wife, Pat Nixon, have circulated for decades without serious examination by the journalists who covered his presidency. It’s time to look more closely at what’s been hiding in plain view.
This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things By Michelle Weber Highlight Scientists knew how serious climate change is. Politicians knew. Energy companies knew. The U.S. was ready to act, and then we… didn’t.
War, What is It Good For? Absolutely Nothing By Krista Stevens Highlight “Across these years, hundreds of thousands of young men and women signed on in good faith and served in the lower and middle ranks. They did not make policy. They lived within it.”
A British Seaweed Scientist Is Revered in Japan as ‘The Mother of the Sea’ By Longreads Feature Kathleen Drew-Baker died never having set foot in Japan, and never knowing what an impact her research would make. Plus, how to build a lazy bed, how to cook Irish blancmange, and other surprising seaweed stories.
A Beast for the Ages By Michael Engelhard Feature Why do we love (and fear, and kill) polar bears with so much intensity?
Bridget Jones’s Staggeringly Outdated Diary By Rebecca Schuman Feature Nineties relationship books had some serious issues, man.
Searching for Caravaggio in the Kitchen By Michelle Weber Highlight Is food nourishment, or art, or both?
The Tyrant and His Enablers By Stephen Greenblatt Feature How is it possible for a whole country to fall into the hands of a tyrant? According to Shakespeare, it could not happen without widespread complicity.
Oregon’s Racist Past By Longreads Feature Starting in the mid-19th century, and extending through the mid-20th century, Oregon was arguably the most racist place outside the southern states, possibly even of all the states.
The Law Is No Place for Ethics By Michelle Weber Highlight The SCOTUS opinion upholding the Muslim ban might not be legally wrong, but shouldn’t the court look at what is just as well as what is legal?
The Little Franchise That Couldn’t By Michelle Weber Highlight Ollie Gleichenhaus cooked up a mean hamburger. How come Americans are eating Big Macs and Whoppers instead of Ollieburgers?
Nothing But Time and Tides and Salt and Mud and Warren Ellis By Michelle Weber Highlight Once described by 8th century Mercian king Offa as “a terrible place,” it’s an odd, out-of-the-way part of the world.
Queens of Infamy: Joanna of Naples By Anne Thériault Feature If you thought four (mostly) crappy husbands, vengeful Hungarian cousins, and the Black Death could cramp this queen’s style, think again.
Taming the Great American Desert By johnforristerross Feature By advocating for agriculture in the arid West, Major John Wesley Powell challenged the way America viewed its right to develop the continent.
Just Try It, You’ll Like It, It’s Good for You By Michelle Weber Highlight Remember when you could only buy milk that came from cows and goats, rather than nuts and seeds? We live in a post-dairy world now, and soy milk started it all.
Oral History Project Grounds Story of Monticello in the Lives of the Enslaved By Danielle Jackson Highlight “Monticello was a Black space. People of African descent shaped the entire landscape: how the food tasted, what the place sounded and felt like.”
