The Case Against Civilization
Hunter-gatherers seems so primitive to modern human beings, especially as we read about them on our smart phones while waiting for the subway and eating a microwaved breakfast sandwich. But what if agriculture gave us more problems than progress?
How Do You Make a TV Show Set in the West Bank?
What the thriller “Fauda” reveals about what Israelis will watch—and what they won’t.
When Should A Child Be Taken From His Parents?
Larisa MacFarquhar walks her readers through the experience of being investigated by children’s protective services, then of carrying out the investigation, and finally shares the stories of several families in New York City who have encountered the agency.
Questions for Me About Dying
Celebrated Australian novelist Cory Taylor was diagnosed with cancer in 2005. Rejecting the taboos that prevent humans from talking openly about death, she goes on the record with her answers to some of the most typical questions people have asked her about dying.
Notes from a Baby-Names Obsessive
Names channel our identity — or at least our parents’ idea of our future identity — in ways both big (class, ethnicity) and small (subcultural affiliations, self-awareness). When the mother’s American and the father’s French, things get complicated, fast.
America’s Future is Texas
It’s a long road, how we got to now, and a lot of it happened in Texas first. Lawrence Wright, who has lived in Texas for most of his life, explains how the state’s deliberate shift from blue to red, to an extreme red, relied on a calculated series of political moves over the last twenty years that are best seen with the long lens of history.
The Reality-TV Star Spencer Pratt on America’s Addiction to Drama
Spencer Pratt’s fame “doesn’t necessarily stem from any immediately recognizable talents.” He and his wife Heidi Montag were the villains of the mid-aughts reality show The Hills, where they were beloved for their strange California-accented-behavior. (Implants! Cristal! Crystals!) Seven years later, Pratt has become a elder-statesman of sorts, a connoisseur of pseudo-celebrity he once peddled, and an expert on the the reality star who currently occupies the Oval Office.
Nick Kyrgios, the Reluctant Rising Star of Tennis
Twenty-two-year-old Australian tennis player Nick Kyrgios is ranked 20th in the world and has beat tennis greats Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, and Novak Djokovic on the court. He’s also flagrantly tried to lose matches on purpose out of frustration, argued with umpires, and berated ball kids. The tennis world is waiting for Kyrgios to mature, but his heart might not be in the game.
The National Enquirer’s Fervor for Trump
The National Enquirer has made political careers, but more often it has broken them. (John Edwards ended his presidential candidacy after the magazine revealed he’d had a child out of wedlock.) But during a presidency rife with scandal, the tabloid has remained quiet thanks to its owner David Pecker, who makes no secret of his love for his old friend Donald Trump.
My Dentist’s Murder Trial
James Lasdun tells the story of how his Kingston, NY-based dentist, Gilberto Nunez, D.D.S., wound up in prison. Lasdun writes about attending Nunez’s trial for the murder of his lover’s husband — a man he called his friend — with an eye toward the ways in which law enforcement can botch a case by determining too soon that it knows what happened, and how hard it can be to judge someone’s character.