Spotlight
This Is How an Empire Falls
The discomforting parallels between our current moment and the end of Rome
by Stephanie Bastek | Friday, August 07, 2020
Web Essays
A Pre-Columbian Bestiary
Fantastic creatures of indigenous Latin America
by Ilan Stavans | Thursday, August 06, 2020
Viral Days
The Windmills of Our Minds
Reading Cervantes during the pandemic
by Sheila Kohler | Monday, August 03, 2020
Smarty Pants Podcast
I Want to Believe
Hunting down America’s favorite fringe stories, cryptids, and alien encounters
by Stephanie Bastek | Friday, July 31, 2020
Viral Days
The Problem in the Classroom
Any true reckoning with racism must include our schools
by Jon Hale | Thursday, July 30, 2020
THIS WEEK’S ARCHIVE PICK
Current Issue
“We will need to shelter in place, we will need to move less, we will need to stop flying all over the globe.”—David Gessner, “Looking Back From the End of the World”
Plus: Farah Peterson on a dangerous founding American myth, Alex Basaraba on whether mountains should have legal standing, and Peter Filkins on Joseph Brodsky
Article
Guardian of the Glaciers
As climate change threatens the future of the Himalayas, might the mountains’ salvation lie in endowing them with legal rights?
by Alex Basaraba
Book Reviews
The People’s Gallery
A collection that is the brightest light in a city full of them
by Anka Muhlstein
Book Reviews
Mysterious Inheritance
A new biography of the founder of population genetics
