Happy Fucking Birthday
An exhausted America turns two hundred and fifty by Christopher Hooks
Republican Machines
Can the GOP save the humanities? by Ann Manov
American Ephemera
A primer on a free people’s government by William T. Vollmann
Category Archives: Essays
THE YALE REVIEW JOURNAL – SUMMER 2026 PREVIEW
THE YALE REVIEW (March 11, 2025): The latest issue features a central folio, “What Was AI?,” exploring artificial intelligence through essays from Lauren Oyler, Christopher Sorrentino, and Melanie Mitchell. The issue also includes new memoirs and essays from Annie Ernaux and Namwali Serpell, alongside a visual portfolio by Vera Molnár.
Jagged Intelligence
The dangerous unknowns at the heart of LLMs by Melanie Mitchell
Reading the Declaration of Independence as Holy Text
How the American creed emerged—and evolved—over 250 years by Kathryn Lofton
Is the Twenty-First Century a Creative Void?
Critics mourn a bygone cultural era. But nostalgia for the new isn’t new by Audrey Wollen
The Birthday Party No One Wants
Why Americans aren’t celebrating the semiquincentennial by Samuel Moyn
I am back in writing hell. As if each time I start writing, I have to go through the same hell again. Annie Ernaux Unpublished journal entries
IMPACT MAGAZINE ———- SPRING 2026 PREVIEW
Pacific Research Institute: The latest issue features America’s 250th anniversary through profiles of historical figures like Benjamin Rush and R.C. Hoiles, while advocating for free-market healthcare and criticizing California’s policy landscape. The issue further highlights American culture through the influence of Sarah Josepha Hale and provides critical analyses of state leadership and economic policies.
PRI, in celebration of America’s 250th birthday, has produced a series of videos and supplemental lesson plans for teachers highlighting the achievements of some of this country’s, and California’s, in particular, greatest unsung heroes. Three of my favorites have been compiled in the pages that follow. The first profiles one of my heroes, Benjamin Rush, a physician and signer of the Declaration of Independence. Another features R.C. Hoiles, a free-market newspaper publisher whose son-in-law Dick Wallace served on the PRI board until his recent passing. Hoiles, a great defender of liberty, built a large group of newspapers around the country including the popular Orange County Register.
And we also honor Sarah Josepha Hale, a poet, author, and visionary force in American culture. She championed Thanksgiving until it became a national tradition and holiday. Through her magazine Godey’s Lady’s Book, she helped to shape American tastes from beloved recipes to the white wedding dress.
SKEPTIC MAGAZINE —– SUMMER 2026 PREVIEW
SKEPTIC MAGAZINE: The latest issue features ‘The Conspiracy Grift’
Skepticism and the Attention Economy
We founded Skeptic magazine and the Skeptics Society in 1992, partially in response to a market demand from consumers and the media for a scientific and rational response to increasingly tantalizing claims of the paranormal and supernatural, ESP and Psi, telepathy and telekinesis, NDEs and OBEs, ghosts and poltergeists, astrology and psychics, cryptozoology and strange creatures, haunted houses and mysterious places, UFOs and aliens, conspiracy theories and cults, and a litany of anomalous psychological experiences people reported.
Anti-Woke, or Just Wounded? A Typology of Two Types of Anti-Woke Intellectuals
I’m a humanistic weirdo, and as such I’m not sure where I belong in this modern culture war. I love truth and reason — I’ve built a career on them — but I belong to a humanistic tradition that refuses to stop at the head and leave the heart out of it. And these days there aren’t many of us. So when I look at the people we’ve come to call “anti-woke intellectuals”—many of whom have written for Skeptic or appeared as guests on The Michael Shermer Show podcast—I don’t see them the way either side wants me to.
Christian Nationalists, Christian Dominionists, and Women’s Rights
HARPER’S MAGAZINE ——— JUNE 2026 PREVIEW
HARPER’S MAGAZINE: The latest issue features a memoir from a Quebec garbageman; Katie Thornton on the undying dream of Esperanto; Wyatt Williams on weather modification; Andrew Cockburn on the data-center divide; Kevin Lozano on Bernie Goetz; and a story from Kevin Brazil.
The Conscience of the City
On the life of the garbageman by Simon Paré-Poupart
Love Language
[Letter from the Czech Republic]
The undying dream of Esperanto by Katie Thornton
Hard Rain
The battle over weather modification by Wyatt Williams
THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE – JUNE 2026 PREVIEW
THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE: The latest issue features The men who don’t want women to vote, a venture-capital populist, Karl Lagerfeld’s feline heir, and new fiction by Stephen King. Plus the Indianapolis Clowns, how to win on Jeopardy, Lee Friedlander, heartland rock, Denyce Graves, Elizabeth Strout, alien conspiracy theories, the U.S. centennial, and more.
The Men Who Want Women to Be Quiet
A virulent form of misogyny has become the single most important force holding together the American right. By Helen Lewis
The Richest Cat in the World
Did Karl Lagerfeld really leave millions to his blue-cream Birman, Choupette? By Chris Heath
The Venture-Capital Populist
How David Sacks and the new tech right went full MAGA and captured Washington By George Packer
THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE – MAY 2026 PREVIEW
THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE: The latest issue features America’s best free bread, the cartel Olympics, a billionaire’s private retreat, and why reactionaries are taking over the world. Plus the U.S. gerontocracy, masterpieces of the New Deal, John Mark Comer, Black comedy, the eighth deadly sin, and more.
I Found It: The Best Free Restaurant Bread in America
Thirteen thousand miles. Infinite contenders. One beautiful loaf. Caity Weaver
The Incredible Story of the Cartel Olympics
A Mexican athlete said he was kidnapped and forced to compete for his life in a tournament of gangs. But was he actually playing a different game? McKay Coppins
Someday in Tehran
The heartbreak of hoping for a democratic Iran Laura Secor
History Is Running Backwards
Why reactionaries are taking over the world David Brooks
HARPER’S MAGAZINE ——— MAY 2026 PREVIEW
HARPER’S MAGAZINE: The latest issue features ‘How Seniors Became America’s Ruling Class’…
The Old Guard
Confronting America’s gerontocratic crisis by Samuel Moyn
Redshift
Rehearsing for humanity’s future on Mars by Elena Saavedra Buckley
Night Soil
On love, shit, and parking by Kristin Dombek
HARPER’S MAGAZINE —— APRIL 2026 PREVIEW
HARPER’S MAGAZINE: The latest issue features ‘Lessons From An Occupation’….
Thirty-Eight Days of ICE
The story of an occupation by Daniel Brook
Conflict Resolution
Has Russia won the war? by Olivier Kempf
State of Nature
What are conservative environmentalists fighting for? by Gaby Del Valle
Brothers and Sisters
On the fiction of siblings by Christine Smallwood
THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE – APRIL 2026 PREVIEW
THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE: The latest issue features ‘My Year as a Degenerate Gambler”…
Sucker
My year as a degenerate gambler
On a Thursday evening in September, I excused myself from the family dinner table and slipped into my bedroom. I didn’t want my kids to see what I was about to do.
With the door locked behind me, I pulled out my phone and downloaded the DraftKings betting app. I felt a certain thrill as I typed in my debit-card information and deposited $500. The first game of the NFL season was a few minutes away. Anything seemed possible. …By McKay Coppins
What 100 Million Volts Do to the Body and Mind
The odds of being struck by lightning in America in a given year are one in 1.2 million. How does the experience reorient a person’s sense of chance, of fate? By Jacob Stern
The Pete Hegseth Exception
Nearly a year after a national-security scandal erupted on my iPhone, no one in the Trump administration has faced consequences. By Jeffrey Goldberg
The Forgotten Female Pilots of World War II
The WASPs risked their lives flying for the Army. But for decades, the U.S. government refused to recognize their military service. By Ellen Cushing
Boomers Daily 