Of Fire and Rain

It was sometime in the afternoon, checking my phone for news from home, that I saw the flames.

March 14, 2026

Longing for My Tehran

On the Israeli news, I watch as the country whose citizenship I hold devastates the one where I was born.

March 14, 2026

Iran Transformed

To understand the regime the US now seeks to obliterate, we have to return to the political and economic convulsions that produced last January’s uprising.

March 8, 2026

The Lie of ‘Preventive’ War

Never has Donald Trump’s willful blindness to legal limits been more evident than in his decision to start a war with Iran.

March 6, 2026

Richard Hell Reads from Godlike

Episode 6 of Private Life

March 18, 2026

Richard Hell on Godlike and Poetry as a Way of Life

Episode 5 of Private Life

March 11, 2026

From the Archive: “The Mystery of JonBenét Ramsey”

Episode 4 of Private Life

March 4, 2026

Joyce Carol Oates on True Crime, Her Improbable Life, and Joan Didion

Episode 3 of Private Life

February 25, 2026

Of Fire and Rain

It was sometime in the afternoon, checking my phone for news from home, that I saw the flames.

March 14, 2026

Longing for My Tehran

On the Israeli news, I watch as the country whose citizenship I hold devastates the one where I was born.

March 14, 2026

Since Dobbs

The telehealth network circumventing abortion bans has given people new choices—even as they contend with new forms of uncertainty.

March 13, 2026

The Docteur Is In

The Congolese rumba pioneer Docteur Nico helped define the sound of African decolonization—and became one of the great visionaries of the electric guitar.

March 11, 2026

The New War on Speech

In modern US history, there has never been an attack on free expression quite like Donald Trump’s.

March 10, 2026

Iran Transformed

To understand the regime the US now seeks to obliterate, we have to return to the political and economic convulsions that produced last January’s uprising.

March 8, 2026

The Lie of ‘Preventive’ War

Never has Donald Trump’s willful blindness to legal limits been more evident than in his decision to start a war with Iran.

March 6, 2026

Fool’s Errands

What will come of the US igniting yet another war in the Middle East?

March 4, 2026

Building the Electrostate

The long story of public power suggests that state ownership can in fact appeal to the broad American public.

February 26, 2026

‘There’s Nothing for Me Here’

What caused Venezuela’s collapse, and who is responsible? A recent memoir tells the story as so many families have lived it.

May 29, 2025 issue

Chavismo’s Chokehold

The party of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro maintains a strong hold on state institutions, but it has lost the people’s mandate. Will there be a transfer of power to the opposition candidate, Edmundo González—the true victor of this summer’s election?

September 19, 2024 issue

The Triumph of a Musical Adventure

“Over the last forty years, through a succession of often controversial political regimes, Venezuela has become widely known for a highly developed system of orchestras and socially directed musical education that is now being adapted and much imitated.”

September 24, 2015 issue

The Last Caudillo

All these years later, it’s still hard to know whether his was a dictablanda (a soft dictatorship) or not. For all his anti-imperialist fulminations, the flow of Venezuelan oil to US ports was not interrupted for a single day. For all his socialist preaching, his country remained firmly capitalist.

March 6, 2013

The Sense of an Endling

In the early nineteenth century, the idea of species extinction was an alien concept. That changed after an expedition to Iceland in search of the last of the great auks.

December 5, 2024 issue

Coq au Pépin

More than almost any other public figure, Jacques Pépin has followed the trajectory of twentieth-century cuisine, from the Hôtel Plaza Athénée to Howard Johnson’s, and from his Burgundy backyard to national television.

October 5, 2023 issue

Intrepid Navigators

Migration’s demands on birds are as daunting mentally as they are physically.

February 25, 2021 issue

They Covered the Sky, and Then…

Perhaps, in ethical terms, it doesn’t much matter whether overhunting was or was not the sole cause of the passenger pigeon’s extinction. Practically speaking, though, it matters a good deal.

January 9, 2014 issue

‘Like a Gossamer Sheet’

“The first time I experienced life on the West Bank, staying over in Palestinian homes, a whole new horizon opened up for me. I entered into that life, its personal friendships, its language, its ravishing landscapes, and its evident suffering. All of it felt meaningful and real.”

March 14, 2026

En Pointe 

“I’m struck by ballet’s ability to create something extraordinarily beautiful out of something so difficult and so taxing on the brain and body.”

March 7, 2026

For the Fossil Record

“I took the opportunity to observe the surviving lemurs in their natural habitats—and it was love at first sight.”

February 28, 2026

Home Free

“Every writer, sooner or later, must face the fact that our characters are taken directly from our own lives, so there will be friends, relatives, and acquaintances who are going to feel like they’ve been pushed under the bus.”

February 21, 2026

Gaza: The Threat of Partition

By putting the possibility of reconstruction out of reach for many Palestinians in Gaza, the current UN-endorsed “peace plan” may make it impossible for them to remain. 

November 23, 2025

What ‘Day After’ for Gaza?

The most influential plans for rebuilding Gaza start from the premise that Palestinians have no right to determine their future.

October 25, 2025

‘A Life That Is Not a Life’

My friend Awdah Hathaleen devoted himself to ending Israel’s occupation of the West Bank. His killing demonstrates just how little distance remains between settlers and the state.

September 5, 2025

‘Infinite License’

The memory of the Holocaust has, perversely, been enlisted to justify both the eradication of Gaza and the extraordinary silence with which that violence has been met.

April 24, 2025 issue