Search Results for: The Atlantic

“Yet, as a 2006 State Department report shows, U.S. officials have for years been aware of credible allegations that Raziq and his men participated in a cold-blooded massacre of civilians, the details of which have, until now, been successfully buried. And this, in turn, raises questions regarding whether U.S. officials may have knowingly violated a 1997 law that forbids assistance to foreign military units involved in human-rights violations.”

“Our Man in Kandahar.” — Matthieu Aikins, The Atlantic

See more #longreads from The Atlantic

To Heaven by Subway

Longreads Pick

On this Memorial Day weekend, travel back to August 1938 to New York City’s Coney Island on a hot summer Sunday. The article profiles the narrow strip of land where Brooklyn meets the Atlantic and thousands of New Yorkers still pour out of the subway to eat hot dogs, ride roller coasters, visit bathhouses and watch freak shows. This was during the Depression, when Coney Island was struggling to survive as the “empire of the nickel.”

Source: Fortune
Published: Aug 1, 1938
Length: 32 minutes (8,220 words)

The History of Cricket in the United States

Longreads Pick

The rules of the game on this side of the Atlantic were formalized in 1754, when Benjamin Franklin brought back from England a copy of the 1744 Laws, cricket’s official rule book. There is anecdotal evidence that George Washington’s troops played what they called “wickets” at Valley Forge in the summer of 1778. After the Revolution, a 1786 advertisement for cricket equipment appeared in the New York Independent Journal, and newspaper reports of that time frequently mention “young gentlemen” and “men of fashion” taking up the sport. Indeed, the game came up in the debate over what to call the new nation’s head of state: John Adams noted disapprovingly—and futilely—that “there are presidents of fire companies and cricket clubs.”

Source: Smithsonian
Published: Mar 31, 2011
Length: 9 minutes (2,257 words)

Rad Storm Rising (1990)

Rad Storm Rising (1990)

James L. Brooks on Journalism, the Oscars, and 'Broadcast News'

James L. Brooks on Journalism, the Oscars, and ‘Broadcast News’

The Lisa Simpson Book Club: Lisa's Longreads

The Lisa Simpson Book Club: Lisa’s Longreads

Jared Keller: Cities and Urban Life: A #Longreads #List

jaredbkeller:

I often find that urbanism and urban living are overly romanticized, more often by citydwellers themselves: Stumbling through concrete caravans dripping with mystique, a day-to-day narrative of tempered chaos, or an odd catharsis as told through the lens of sidewalk meet-cute. I often long for life closer to the wilderness, clogged by forests and dirty roads, but I remain fascinated with the totally batshit way in which cities are planned and built, and how urban geography and city design transcribe social and psychological narratives on the human lives lived within. So I put together a list of five wonderful city narratives from the past several years:

Jared Keller is associate editor for The Atlantic. Click through for the full list.

kimaskew: My Favorite #Longreads This Week

kimaskew:

In Search of Spiraling Time (Bookslut)

The Man Who Spilled the Secrets (Vanity Fair)

Michael Chabon: How to Salvage a “Wrecked” Novel  (The Atlantic)

David Mitchell: Earth calling Taylor (FT.com)

The Tyranny of Defense Inc.

The Tyranny of Defense Inc.

Brendan Maher: My Top 5 Longreads of 2010

I’m the biology features editor for the news team at Nature, the UK-based science journal. Longreads kindly asked me to offer up my five favourite couldn’t-put-down features for the year, and I was happy to comply. The focus on biology wasn’t intentional, but I did purposely keep features from Nature out of the running (it’s like choosing which child you love best!).

***

Autism’s First Child (John Donvan & Caren Zucker, The Atlantic, October 2010)

This profile of the first person technically diagnosed with autism is as touching as it is revealing about the troubles faced by doctors, patients and patient advocates when trying to determine a diagnosis.

Paper Trail: Inside the Stem Cell Wars (sub req’d) (Peter Aldhous, New Scientist, June 9, 2010)

Peter Aldhous went to town with a data-mining quest designed to verify a claim that several scientists had been complaining about: namely, that the publication of papers in a specific area of stem cell research was being manipulated by a cadre of influential scientists. It’s not exactly narrative form, but a stellar data visualization effort.

Depression’s Upside (Jonah Lehrer, New York Times, Feb. 28, 2010)

Jonah Lehrer deftly maneuvered this puzzling, but oddly compelling argument that depression has a purpose and benefit for the brain. It doesn’t soft pedal the real and relevant criticisms of evolutionary psychology, but still presents a nice picture of the “tortured genius” paradox (see also David Dobbs’ “Orchid Children” which missed making this list for a temporal technicality).

The Covenant (Peter J. Boyer, The New Yorker, Sept. 6, 2010)

Peter J. Boyer’s masterfully nuanced profile of NIH director Francis Collins was exquisitely written and did a nice job of really digging into someone whose faith–it would seem–has lots of potential to come into conflict with his job. It also happened to be timed quite well with the collapse of funding for stem cell research–something that The New Yorker couldn’t plan for, but obviously accommodated quite deftly.

The Brain that Changed Everything (Luke Dittrich, Esquire, Oct. 25, 2010)

This is just a stirring feature on one of the events of the year for neuroanatomy. It recounts the life and death and dissection of Henry Molaison, who lost the ability to form new memories after an operation to remove his hippocampus. The operation was performed by William Scoville and the piece is written by Scoville’s grandson.