Trevor Jackson The Crash Next Time Can histories of economic crisis provide us with useful lessons? April 4, 2024 issue
Edward Chancellor The Naturalist In a new biography, Friedrich Hayek emerges as a paradoxical figure: a passionate liberal whose most enthusiastic supporters have been conservative. December 7, 2023 issue
Daniel Immerwahr Zoning Out A recent book contends that the global economy has a new geography of special zones, islands, and enclaves that benefit the world’s wealthiest residents. November 23, 2023 issue
Ben Tarnoff Ultra Hardcore If Walter Isaacson’s new book inflates the scale of Elon Musk’s contributions to humanity, it also understates the amount of damage inflicted on actual humans along the way. January 18, 2024 issue
Daniel J. Kevles Unreasonable Terms In Owning the Sun, Alexander Zaitchik shows how American drug companies have exploited government contracts to pursue profit over public interest. October 5, 2023 issue
Anjan Sundaram, illustrated by John Grund White Bay Life under the chemical megafactories of Ingeniero White, Argentina. May 28, 2023
Bill Spindle On the Grid in Leisang With every village in India electrified, the country’s challenge will be to meet growing energy demand with renewable sources. But can it afford to give up fossil fuels? June 22, 2022
Jonathan Mingle Reasons for Concern The IPCC’s latest report, with warnings for supply chains and food security, may be the most suspense-filled document in human history. March 9, 2022
Francesca Mari The Housing Vultures The investors who exploited the 2008 financial crisis are dictating the bailout of this one. June 11, 2020 issue
Gabriel M. Schivone America’s Eviction Epidemic Across the country, millions of people are facing eviction as protections in place for the pandemic have lapsed. September 16, 2020
Roberta Brandes Gratz How NYC Is Zoning Out the Human Scale This is a New York story only for now. Upzonings and transfers of newly created air rights are occurring in cities around the country. When it comes to real estate, New York City may lead the way, but others follow in time. December 30, 2019
Michael Greenberg Tenants Under Siege: Inside New York City’s Housing Crisis New York City is in the throes of a humanitarian emergency. The tide of homelessness is only the most visible symptom. August 17, 2017 issue
Marc Levinson What Is a Supermarket? If the FTC blocks the proposed merger of Kroger and Albertsons, will bigger giants of food retailing like Walmart come out as winners? June 14, 2024
Francisco Cantú A Legacy of Plunder In its reexamination of entrenched narratives about the expropriation of Native land, Michael Witgen’s work is changing how Native people are situated in the arc of North American history. June 20, 2024 issue
Quinn Slobodian Safe Havens The UK’s “second empire” of tax-free jurisdictions around the world persists despite the overwhelming evidence that it enables corruption, drains public budgets, and exacerbates inequality. May 23, 2024 issue
Jason DeParle Sisyphus on the Street Tracy Kidder’s portrait of a doctor and his homeless patients offers personhood to people many Americans have trained themselves not to see. April 4, 2024 issue
Natalie de Souza The Dark Tangle of Alzheimer’s Recent breakthroughs in dementia treatments have been hailed as successes, but after decades of disappointing research it is difficult to be optimistic. February 22, 2024 issue
Kim Phillips-Fein Conspicuous Destruction Two new books argue that the private equity industry has created an economic order in which getting rich quickly preempts every other value, undermining companies and evading the law. October 19, 2023 issue
E. Tammy Kim Storyboards and Solidarity The current Hollywood strikes have a precedent in Disney’s golden age, when the company was a hothouse of innovation and punishing expectation. October 5, 2023 issue
Ben Tarnoff Better, Faster, Stronger Two recent books illuminate the dark foundations of Silicon Valley. September 21, 2023 issue
Trevor Jackson The Price of Crypto Despite its boosters’ frequent references to democracy and freedom, cryptocurrency reflects a radical marketization of politics in which major players can rewrite the rules as needed. June 8, 2023 issue
Jerome Groopman Saving Lives and Making a Killing A new book reveals the split personality of the biotech industry: an altruistic enterprise that creates breakthrough treatments for patients in need, and a bare-knuckle business that seeks to generate astronomic profits and stop competitors from developing better treatments. May 25, 2023 issue