Summer 2013

Cover Story

Laughter and the Brain

Can humor help us better understand the most complex and enigmatic organ in the human body?

by Richard Restak

Articles

Ladies Last

After the Civil War, both women and black men struggled to win the vote. Why the men succeeded

by Brenda Wineapple

Park of Ages

Far more than just an urban retreat, Hyde Park is a living archive of British culture and history

by Amanda Foreman

Playing at Violence

Having grown up amid the horrors of Burundi’s civil war, a young man is bewildered by the American lust for warlike video games

by Pacifique Irankunda

Intimacy With the Inevitable

A doctor’s journey, from student to resident to consoler of the dying

by William Harless

At Sixty-Five

After the excesses of youth and terrors of middle age, a writer faces the contingencies of being old

by Emily Fox Gordon