They're Watching You at Work
What happens when Big Data meets human resources? The emerging practice of "people analytics" is already transforming how employers hire, fire, and promote.
December 2013
In This Issue
How data is changing hiring and firing, the quest to end the flu, John Kerry's aggressive diplomacy, how women change men, the worst year in history, and more
Features
How John Kerry Could End Up Outdoing Hillary Clinton
Critics say he's pompous and reckless—but his relentlessness may end up making him the most consequential secretary of state in years.
Why Are Prison Riots Declining While Prison Populations Explode?
A visit to corrections officers’ annual Mock Prison Riot
The Quest to End the Flu
The methods used to make flu vaccines are slow and sometimes unreliable, and new viruses threaten to outrun them. Can researchers find a way to stay ahead?
The Hospital Is No Place for the Elderly
Medical treatment for aging, chronically ill patients is costly and often ineffective. Can they get better care at home?
The War No Image Could Capture
Photography has given us iconic representations of conflict since the Civil War—with a notable exception. Why, during the Great War, the camera failed.
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Stephen Vuillemin Do Democrats Make Better Neighbors?
Possibly, though not if you need a kidney, or your plants watered while you're away
Poodlesrock/Corbis How Women Change Men
As daughters, sisters, wives, and co-workers
Nishant Choksi In Praise of Fancy Words
The pleasures of reading with a dictionary by one's side
Mike Basher Photobomb: A New Data-Recording Device for First Responders
It's round, it bounces, and it snaps pictures every half second.
Joshua Lott/Reuters Is Capitalism in Trouble?
CEOs are growing nervous. Can they help save our system from its worst excesses?
Michael Myers Cloudy With a Chance of Beer
The Weather Company's Vikram Somaya talks about why marketers are clamoring for weather data.
The Next Housing Crash
When the Boomers downsize, what will happen to the suburbs?
Walter Newton China's Latest Video-Game Craze
Within two hours of its release, Airplane War was reportedly downloaded 180 million times.
Lighttraveler When John Lennon Was 'Thoroughly Bad News'
A very short book excerpt
Africa Studio/Shutterstock Problem: Our Tenant Is Making Our House Smell Like Cat Urine
Our advice columnist to the rescue
The Culture File
Kevin Christy How Norman Rockwell Captured the Inner Life of a Nation
His tableaux of American innocence are not as simple as they seem.
Paul Windle Machiavelli Was Right
The shocking lesson of The Prince isn't that politics demands dirty hands, but that politicians shouldn't care.
Library of Congress 'Our Place Is in the Sky'
Balloons, though they fly low, inspire dangerous dreams of escape.
Cover to Cover
A new essay anthology captures the power of city parks.
Susanne Stout Smith Where They Drink Whiskey in the Morning
A cruise around the Hebrides, the Scottish islands that inspired Samuel Johnson, James Boswell, and Robert Louis Stevenson
Departments
The Conversation
Responses and reverberations
Graham Roumieu The Big Question
What was the worst year in history?
