“Courts found serious, reversible errors in nearly seven of every 10 of the thousands of capital sentences fully reviewed.”—Lincoln Caplan

Plus: Ingrid D. Rowland on the masterful sculptures of Bertoldo di Giovanni, Jon Zobenica on the forgotten sexual revolution of World War II, and Jerome Charyn on Tarantino

“Had NASA kept pace, Elon Musk and others wouldn’t be planning missions to Mars. They’d have moved there already.”—George Musser

Plus: Scott W. Stern on why laws against sex trafficking never work, Caroline Alexander follows in the footsteps of the Iliad, and Karen J. Coates reports from a Cambodia flooded with Chinese investment

“Impeachment suggests dysfunction, uncertainty, and discord—not the discord of war, which can be memorialized as valorous, purposeful, and idealistic, but the far less dramatic and often sad, squalid, intemperate conflicts of peace: partisanship, rancor, and racial division.”—Brenda Wineapple

Plus: a little-known speech by Jacques Barzun on the meaning of life, Ingrid D. Rowland on the playful genius of Tintoretto, and Tracy Thompson on the complicated legacy of the southern writer and social critic Lillian Smith

“Today, CCA operates dozens of private prisons and private immigration detention centers. The corporation earns hundreds of millions in annual profits.”—Keramet Reiter

Plus: Farah Peterson upends the familiar story of the Boston Massacre, Gwyneth Kelly reports on New Zealand’s fake meat beef, and Tom Zoellner visits two towns in Iowa caught up in the national struggle over immigration

“Internet ventures have become such behemoths that the immunity they received two decades ago may no longer make sense.”—Lincoln Caplan

Plus: Laura Bernstein-Machlay sends her daughter off to college, David Gessner tests the boundaries of writing about race, and Ralph Lombreglia writes a story about drummers

“Please, I’m not a Victorian moralist. I’m a 21st-century feminist (well, basically, a 1970s feminist) who wants women to make choices and who has fought to make choices myself.”—Sandra Gilbert

Plus: John Lukacs on illiberal democracy, Sheila Kohler on an uncomfortable gift, Steven L. Isenberg on his old boss Bobby Kennedy