On Safari in Trump’s America
A journey into the next frontier of anthropological tourism: unsuspecting towns in the American “heartland.”
Death at a Penn State Fraternity
Tim Piazza fought for life for 12 hours while his Beta Theta Pi brothers alternatively did nothing, or continued to abuse him — and it’s all on video.
Mayonnaise, Disrupted
Is Josh Tetrick’s vegan-mayo company just another over-promising, under-delivering startup?
How Motherhood Affects Creativity
Despite the very American idea that the artistic impulse and the parenting impulse are fundamentally opposed, writer and mother Erika Hayasaki looks at science and mothers’ experience for the truth: That becoming a mother makes many women more, not less, creative.
How the Meat Industry Thinks About Non-Meat-Eaters
The Atlantic talks to the editor of a meat industry trade publication about American meat production and publishing for a niche reader.
The First White President
In his latest for the Atlantic, Ta-Nehisi Coates posits that white identity politics forms the foundation of Donald Trump’s presidency.
America, Home of the Transactional Marriage
The disappearance of good jobs for people with less education has made it harder for them to start, and sustain, relationships.
Annie Dillard’s Classic Essay: ‘Total Eclipse’
Dillard’s 1982 personal essay — excerpted by The Atlantic from her new collection, The Abundance: Narrative Essays Old and New. She writes in exquisite detail about the haunting, surreal experience of witnessing the last solar eclipse, on February 26th, 1979, after driving five hours inland in Washington State to catch it from a hill top.
Hunting for Antibiotics in the World’s Dirtiest Places
With drug resistance on the rise, the world faces a potential health catastrophe from infections we can no longer fight. One English scientist is probing toilet seats and pools of nasty stuff to find cures the way earlier scientists did: in nature.
A Search for the Flavor of a Beloved Childhood Medicine
One person searches for the flavor of the pediatric amoxicillin that, despite the pain of the ear infection it treated, endeared itself to so many of us. It’s what you might call a pharmaceutical travelogue, following a different sort of chem-trail.