Autumn 2016

Cover Story

The Virtue of an Educated Voter

The Founders believed that a well-informed electorate preserves our fragile democracy and benefits American society as a whole

by Alan Taylor

Articles

Chicago Hope

Can the collaboration between a progressive boarding school and a big-city charter academy transform American Public High School Education?

by Lincoln Caplan

Writing the Unimaginable

When future generations look back at the fiction of our time, what will they make of the failure to address the crisis of climate change?

by Amitav Ghosh

Put a Bird on It

How did a beguiling South American hummingbird end up in the basement of a Pennsylvania museum?

by Erik Anderson

Turbulence

Death can come at any time, from above or below, but life requires putting fear aside

by Brandon Lingle

Thine as Ever, P. T. Barnum

A scholar offers three utterly fictitious letters he wishes the famous showman had written

by A. H. Saxon

Little Bowls of Colors

Writing in a foreign language can reveal secrets long buried in our mother tongue

by Ewa Hryniewicz-Yarbrough

Departments

Book Essay

A Life Written in Invisible Ink

A Life Written in Invisible Ink

In her rebellious and much-celebrated poetry, Adrienne Rich both deciphered and created the feminist world she inhabited

Sandra M. Gilbert

Book Reviews

Second Thoughts

Second Thoughts

To manipulate time, we must first understand how it works

George Musser
Darkness  Illuminated

Darkness Illuminated

A horror writer whose real demons were off the page

Susan Cheever
Territories of Conquest

Territories of Conquest

A new history of the bloodletting that opened the frontier

Andrew Graybill
Before the  Rebellion

Before the Rebellion

A colonial American artist’s portraits of an age

Meryle Secrest
The Old Urbanist

The Old Urbanist

Jane Jacobs saw cities as places for people

Edward Glaeser
Healing the Masses

Healing the Masses

The evolution of care at the nation’s oldest public hospital

T. M. Luhrmann
A Rare Intelligence

A Rare Intelligence

A review of a thrilling life

Bruce Falconer