Secessionist Talk Is Serious

Disunion is hardly a new theme in American politics. In this moment of tumult, it would be unwise to rule out its return.

January 19, 2021

A World Without Us: Josef Koudelka’s ‘Ruins’

These photographs of ancient sites, taken around the Mediterranean between 1991 and 2015, are particularly apt in our time of isolation and upheaval.

January 16, 2021

Mission to the Frozen North

William Barents’s last Arctic voyage was destined to be not a triumph of navigation but a struggle to survive. Four centuries later, his dream of a Northeast Passage is a troubling reality.

January 5, 2021

‘Bright Unbearable Reality’: Migration As Seen from Above

Aerial photography has historically documented warscapes, mass migration, and now the effects of the global pandemic.

January 2, 2021

The Styrofoam Presidency

Many hoped Trump’s aesthetics were not a reflection of his entire political self, but merely a style that could be dropped when the occasion demanded it. But when the inauguration came, Trump trampled on some of the most hallowed public rituals of American power.

January 24, 2017

What He Really Said

President Obama’s first inauguration was the first time black people had come to Washington in great numbers, but not to protest.

February 26, 2009 issue

Beyond the Fringe

At George W. Bush’s 2001 inauguration, the National Mall was cordoned off by chainlink fencing for the first time ever. Such stringent measures may have been inconsistent with America’s ideals, but not, apparently, with its laws.

February 22, 2001 issue

Old Times

Richard Nixon’s self-denial, self-mythologizing, and self-discipline were on full display at his 1973 inauguration.

February 22, 1973 issue