Ideas

Marie Antoinette: Why Was She So Hated?

How Marie Antoinette tried to save the monarchy.

November 5, 2020 issue

A Moral Witness

Martha Gellhorn’s letters to her lovers and intimate friends involve a remarkable feat of reportage on the war within Gellhorn herself

October 8, 2020 issue

Young Woman from the Provinces

Benjamin Moser’s Sontag: Her Life and Work

February 27, 2020 issue

Man’s Biggest Friend

The origins of the elephant–human relationship date back into prehistory.

November 21, 2019 issue

Octopus: The Footed Void

The closer you look at an octopus, the more you see.

April 30, 2013

Intrepid Navigators

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

February 25, 2021 issue

Requiem for a Heavyweight

In Fathoms, Rebecca Giggs tries to comprehend the fact that whales now literally embody their increasingly polluted world.

August 19, 2021 issue

CATS

To enjoy the company of a cat, we must be prepared to forgo our dominant pack leader role, and adopt a more modest position.

November 3, 1994 issue

Horse Sense

A book for naturalists or cowboys, bluegrass aristocrats or race-track touts, distinguished academics or little girls gone horse-crazy, and all readers with an interest in Equus caballus.

May 15, 1997 issue

Men Explain Abortion Drugs to the FDA

In a Texas lawsuit, Christian medical organizations are asking a hand-picked judge to make the FDA rescind its approval of mifepristone. They might succeed.

March 7, 2023

The Grassroots of ‘Roe’

My mother’s part in the 1970 repeal of New York’s abortion law is a lesson for today’s activists: all politics is local.

January 16, 2023

A Child Is Being Aborted

Psychoanalysis helped me make sense of my desire to have a child. It also exposes the fantasies at the root of the fear of abortion.

September 21, 2022

‘Can You Describe This?’

Every week that I handle calls on the abortion fund’s hotline is a week spent confronting the mundanity of the struggle for dignity.

May 8, 2022