Obama was born into a country where laws barring his very conception—let alone his ascendancy to the presidency—had long stood in force. A black president would always be a contradiction for a government that, throughout most of its history, had oppressed black people. The attempt to resolve this contradiction through Obama—a black man with deep […]
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Posted inArts & Culture, Highlight, Nonfiction, Reading List, Unapologetic Women
Twelve Longreads for Aretha Franklin
Aretha Franklin was born March 25, 1942 and died Thursday, August 16, 2018.
Posted inBooks, Essays & Criticism, Story
What Ever Happened To the Truth?
Michiko Kakutani is interested in how the distinction between fact and fiction has blurred — and how this makes us all complicit.
Posted inCurrent Events, Nonfiction, Quotes
The Elephant in the Flood
The troubled world of flood insurance: what happens to coastal communities as climate change leads to more and more catastrophic flooding?
Posted inEditor's Pick
To Obama With Love, and Hate, and Desperation
Jeanne Marie Laskas goes behind the scenes in the Whitehouse mailroom where it took “50 staff members, 36 interns, and a rotating roster of 300 volunteers” to read and process the 10,000 messages and letters President Barack Obama received each day during his eight-year presidency. Of the 10,000 pieces of correspondence, staffers were charged with […]
Posted inCurrent Events, Nonfiction, Op-Ed, Quotes, Video
Please Watch This Video Showing the Unfathomable Cruelty of U.S. Immigration Policy
The willful dismissal of our own humanity and common sense lies at the core of U.S. immigration policy.
Posted inNonfiction
Coachella, Underground
Spending time in California’s Coachella Valley, journalist Gabriel Thompson explores how the region’s Latino communities have adjusted to a life of fear and uncertainty under a Trump administration.
Posted inReading List
Longreads Best of 2017: Political Writing
We asked writers and editors to choose some of their favorite stories of the year in various categories. Here is the best in political writing.
Posted inBooks, Current Events, Nonfiction, Story
The Great Online School Scam
Students are performing worse than ever, but private companies are making millions.
Posted inBooks, Fiction, Profiles & Interviews, Story
‘What Would Social Media Be Like As the World Is Ending?’
In Mark Doten’s “Trump Sky Alpha,” a journalist who has survived Trump’s nuclear apocalypse gets an assignment from what’s left of the New York Times Magazine: find out what people were tweeting as the bombs fell.
