In my study of African American history, the Civil War was always something of a sideshow. Just off center stage, it could be heard dimly behind the stories of Booker T. Washington, Ida B. Wells, and Martin Luther King Jr., a shadow on the fringe. But three years ago, I picked up James McPherson’s Battle […]
Search results
Posted inUncategorized
The Top 10 Longreads of 2011
I should preface this by saying I didn’t plan to do a list, because all of your Top 5 Longreads of 2011 really represent what the Longreads community is all about. But, in true WWIC form, I couldn’t resist. Thank you for an incredible year. Special thanks to the entire Longreads team: Joyce King Thomas, Kjell Reigstad, Hakan Bakkalbasi and […]
Posted inUncategorized
Matt Pearce: My Top 5 Longreads
Matt Pearce is a contributing writer for The Los Angeles Times, The New Inquiry, and The Pitch. He’s based in Kansas City and recently covered the Egyptian elections and uprisings on Tahrir Square. ••• 1. Paul Ford – “The Epiphanator” – New York magazine I think this year we’ve reached this saturation point where a […]
Posted inUncategorized
An artist recreates Gettysburg with a lifelike cyclorama—and the painting changes how many people viewed the battle: “No person should die without seeing this cyclorama,” declared a Boston man in 1885. “It’s a duty they owe to their country.” Paul Philippoteaux’s lifelike depiction of the Battle of Gettysburg was much more than a painting. It […]
Posted inUncategorized
What does the future hold for Afghanistan after the Americans leave? Some fear that the country’s army won’t be able to stop another civil war from erupting: Many Afghans fear that NATO has lost the will to control the militias, and that the warlords are reëmerging as formidable local forces. Nashir, the Khanabad governor, who […]
Posted inUncategorized
A writer of made-for-TV movies reflects on his middling successes and near-misses from a career of steady but not spectacular work in Hollywood: On occasion during my 30-year screenwriting career, the amount on these checks has been life-changing, enough money to buy a car or temporarily pay off our credit cards. But I don’t really […]
Posted inUncategorized
A look at the rights of same-sex parents after a mother abducts her daughter and heads to Nicaragua after a civil union dissolves: Isabella’s tumultuous life has embodied some of America’s bitterest culture wars — a choice, as Ms. Miller said in a courtroom plea, shortly before their desperate flight, ‘between two diametrically opposed worldviews […]
Posted inMember Pick, Nonfiction, Story, Uncategorized
Forever Young
A group of Hungarian game developers spent more than 20 years developing a game for the Commodore 64.
Posted inBooks, First Chapters, Member Pick, Nonfiction, Story
‘Like Being in Prison with a Salary’: The Secret World of the Shipping Industry
Rose George | Metropolitan Books | August 2013 | 17 minutes (4,213 words) The following is the opening chapter of Rose George’s new book, Ninety Percent of Everything. Our thanks to the author for sharing it with the Longreads community. * * * Friday. No sensible sailor goes to sea on the day of the Crucifixion or the […]
Posted inNonfiction, Story
Caught Up in the Cult Wars: Confessions of a New Religious Movement Researcher
Susan J. Palmer | University of Toronto Press | 2001 | 38 minutes (9,328 words) The below article comes recommended by Longreads contributing editor Julia Wick, and we’d like to thank the author, Susan J. Palmer, for allowing us to share it with the Longreads community.
