Nancy Scola | Next City, Forefront magazine | November 2013 | 26 minutes (6,561 words) Illustration by Kjell Reigstad Longreads Members support this service and receive exclusive stories from the best publishers and writers in the world. Join us to receive our latest Member Pick—it’s a new story from journalist Nancy Scola, published in Next […]
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The Making of McKinsey: A Brief History of Management Consulting in America
Duff McDonald | The Firm, Simon & Schuster | 2013 | 12 minutes (3,000 words) The American Century In 1941 Time Inc. publisher Henry Luce coined the term “American Century” in a Life magazine editorial. He was describing the country’s global economic and political dominance leading up to World War II. But Luce was also correct in the […]
What the Smartphone Is Doing to Fiction
“There’s nothing worse for plots than cellphones. Once your characters have one, there’s no reason for them to get lost or stranded. Or miss each other at the top of the Empire State Building. If you want anything like that to happen, you either have to explain upfront what happened to the phones or you […]
How a San Francisco Startup Dies
“In meetings on Sand Hill Road, Latour says, nearly everyone expressed enthusiasm for Everpix’s product. But one by one, they turned him down. After two meetings with one well-known firm, a partner sent Latour an email. ‘You guys seem to be a spectacularly talented team and some informal reference checking confirmed that, but everyone here […]
The Future of Personal Data, Democracy, and Opting Out of Fitness Trackers
“People who say that tracking their fitness or location is merely an affirmative choice from which they can opt out have little knowledge of how institutions think. Once there are enough early adopters who self-track—and most of them are likely to gain something from it—those who refuse will no longer be seen as just quirky […]
Silicon Chasm
Charlotte Allen (who graduated from Stanford) examines the massive income inequality and “new feudalism” in Silicon Valley—as a sign of what’s happening across the United States: Google is visually impressive, but this frenzy of energy and hipness hasn’t generated large numbers of jobs, much less what we think of as middle-class jobs, the kinds of […]
Reading List: Examining Technology
Emily Perper is a word-writing human for hire. She blogs about her favorite longreads at Diet Coker. The following four pieces resist cliches about social media and its impact. These authors do not shame nor condone; they do not preach. They take a deeper look at the tendency and luxury to share our lives with […]
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
Below, our favorite stories of the week. Kindle and Readmill users, you can also get them as a Readlist. Sign up to receive this list free every Friday in your inbox. *** 1. Is There Hope for the Survivors of the Drug Wars? Monica Potts | American Prospect | March 24, 2014 | 32 minutes […]
Why Do So Many Harvard Students Go Into Management Consulting? Our College Pick
Every week, Syracuse University professor Aileen Gallagher helps Longreads highlight the best of college journalism. Here’s this week’s pick: A Harvard University degree opens so many doors, but nearly a third of Harvard graduates go into management consulting or finance. Harvard Crimson reporter Victoria A. Baena interviewed several peers, alumni, recruiters, and faculty members to […]
Ingenious
How to spend your entire income building a car to travel 100 miles on a gallon of gas.

