Cover Story
The Well Curve
Tropical diseases are undermining intellectual development in countries with poor health care—and they’re coming here next
by Harriet A. Washington
Articles
The Sweet Briar Opportunity
Small colleges with too few applicants and large universities with too many should work together
by Carol T. Christ
Hope Is the Enemy
Caring for a patient suffering from dementia means coming to terms with the frustrating paradoxes of memory and language
by Dasha Kiper
The Mysteries of Attraction
Its many splendors do not only include the carnal: animate, inanimate … love it all
by Edward Hoagland
Capital of Willows
On a trip to North Korea, a writer remembers his troubled father, a victim of the “Forgotten War”
by Eben Wood
Test of Faith
The Roman Catholic Church may forgive us our sins—but can it be forgiven for its own?
by Mark Edmundson
Departments
Editor's Note
Letter From …
Tuning Up
Arts
Poetry
Works in Progress
Back Talk
Commonplace Book
Book Reviews
A Lifetime Spent Bearing Witness
The literary giant who rose from the ashes of a people
Louis Begley
Living Like White People
The disorientation of growing up privileged and black
Thomas Chatterton Williams
The Wisdom of the Ages
Looking to the classics to steel yourself against life’s cruelties