Michael Massing The Story the Media Missed in Afghanistan Belated press coverage of what enabled the Taliban’s return to power as the US withdrew exposed past failures to report the conflict’s effects on Afghans beyond Kabul. October 20, 2021
Fintan O’Toole Ireland’s Coming of Age and Mine For a Dublin kid growing up in the 1960s and 1970s, the whole experience was mirrored in the nation’s quest for identity. October 18, 2021
Yasmine El Rashidi Pharaonic Ambition in Ferro-Concrete This makeover of Egypt’s capital is not just heedless of its heritage, but wantonly destructive of old neighborhoods—all in service of a self-aggrandizing nationalist mythology. October 16, 2021
Raja Shehadeh In His Father’s Footsteps “So I continued to visit Jaffa, but I had to rely more on my imagination because the reality was of an entirely different place from what he had described.” October 16, 2021
Jonathan Stevenson Not So Great Britain The UK’s hapless part in the US-Australian submarine deal exemplifies the post-Brexit nation’s problem: how to stay relevant in world affairs after jilting its biggest trade and diplomatic partner, the EU. October 13, 2021
Ben Lerner Unknown Sources of Lift “I think there’s an understandable but perilous tendency to conflate art and artist when the artist in question uses autobiographical elements in their work.” October 9, 2021
Adam Shatz Coltrane’s New ‘Love Supreme’ The studio version has long been recognized as the jazz saxophonist’s masterwork. But a recently unearthed live recording is nothing short of a revelation. October 7, 2021
John J. Lennon A Canon for the American Prisoner “There’s something critically important that books do for us that we can’t get anywhere else—because so much of prison is trying to master the art of becoming.” October 5, 2021
Marisa Mazria Katz Calling Grandma “Rouhi yamama, you know you are my favorite.” These endearments, even when they sloshed in her mouth like the ice cubes in her drink, always made my troubles melt away. October 2, 2021
Gavin Francis Human Diagnostics “Life in lockdown is not natural for the majority of Homo sapiens. In the ballooning of mental health problems this year, we’ve seen just how deleterious those kinds of restrictions are.” October 2, 2021
