The 9.9 Percent Is the New American Aristocracy
The class divide is already toxic, and is fast becoming unbridgeable. You’re probably part of the problem.
June 2018
In This Issue
A Muslim among Israeli settlers, the pearl at the center of an 80-year-old hoax, Marti Noxon putting women’s rage on TV, and pop culture’s response to Trump. Plus, Kissinger on AI and the end of humanity, an interview with Seth Meyers, the search for life on Mars, NRATV, and more.
Cover Story
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Is Television Ready for Angry Women?
Producer Marti Noxon has two shows about women’s pain and rage debuting this summer—and the timing couldn’t be better.
A Muslim Among Israeli Settlers
What happens when a Pakistani American writer goes deep into the West Bank?
Chasing the Pearl of Lao Tzu
A tale of ancient philosophers, alien abductions, murder-for-hire—and how the world’s largest pearl came to be the centerpiece of an 80-year-old hoax
Can Protest Art Get Its Mojo Back?
Since the 2016 election, pop music and TV shows have emphasized liberal impotence more than anger. Is that about to change?
Dispatches
Edmon de Haro How the Enlightenment Ends
Philosophically, intellectually—in every way—human society is unprepared for the rise of artificial intelligence.
Lloyd Bishop / NBC Seth Meyers Has ‘Very Fond’ Memories of Roasting Trump
“Trump was asking for it,” the comedian says.
James Graham The Owl Thieves of Sweden
As the country ditches cash, criminals turn to stealing owls.
Tyler Comrie An SAT for CEOs
To get their next job—or keep their current one—some executives might need to take, and ace, a timed exam.
Christopher DeLorenzo How Useful Is Fear?
Evolution has installed phobias in humans that are proving hard to shake.
Tim Tomkinson Can Abigail Allwood Find Life on Mars?
She made her name identifying the earliest accepted proof of life on Earth. Now NASA is counting on her to repeat the trick.
Rami Niemi Russia’s Controversial Knockoff of The Americans
As FX’s spy drama ends, an overseas imitation imagines a CIA sleeper cell wreaking havoc in Moscow.
Joe McKendry Penguin Prostitution Is a Thing
A very short book excerpt
The Culture File
Jesse Lenz Live-Streaming the Apocalypse With NRATV
The online-streaming service of the National Rifle Association is part lifestyle channel, part gun-lobby orifice—and it wants to make you buy firearms.
Dawid Planeta The Novel That Asks, ‘What Went Wrong With Mankind?’
Richard Powers’s climate-themed epic, The Overstory, embraces a dark optimism about the fate of humanity.
Lars Leetaru The Wisdom of Running a 2,189-Mile Marathon
What extreme athletes can—and can’t—tell us about human endurance
Rizzoli The Kids’ Guide to the Postwar World
Half a century ago, a Czech illustrator’s vivid travel books helped open young minds to the rest of the planet.
Autism’s Dark Roots in Nazi Vienna
A new book from the historian Edith Sheffer investigates the medical pioneer Hans Asperger’s involvement in a Third Reich eugenics program.
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Graham Roumieu
Poetry
WG600 Once I Lived
A poem
