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In Memoriam We at Harper’s Magazine are saddened by the death of our former contributing editor Thomas de Zengotita (1943–2024), who wrote many essays for the magazine, including “The Numbing…

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by Harper’s Magazine,

Safety in Numbers I’ve been in security since 1985, and I recognize many of the industry’s shortcomings described in Jasper Craven’s report [“The Thin Purple Line,” September]. Training leaves a…

by Christopher Carroll, Ann K. Gollin, Marilynne Robinson, John Jeremiah Sullivan, Annie Dillard, Roger D. Hodge, Ellen Rosenbush, Jennifer Szalai, Sheila Wolfe, Gerald Marzorati, Cynthia Ozick, Garret Keizer, Ralph Nader, Colin Harrison, Francine Prose, Curtis White, Gemma Sieff, Robert Whitcomb, Jack Hitt, Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah, Adam Iscoe, Will Augerot, Matthew Stevenson, Rafil Kroll-Zaidi,

This month’s Letters section is devoted to remembrances of Lewis H. Lapham (1935–2024), the editor of Harper’s Magazine from 1976 to 1981 and from 1983 to 2006. I first…

The Letters of Lewis H. Lapham and Henry A. Kissinger

by Lewis H. Lapham, Henry A. Kissinger,

July 30, 1979 Dear Dr. Kissinger: I thoroughly enjoyed our conversation at lunch last month, and I hope that we have an occasion sometime in the fall to extend and…

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Kindred Spirits In 1927, Sarah Comstock profiled the Pentecostal preacher Aimee Semple McPherson, the “prima donna of revivalism,” for this magazine [“A Bejazzed World,” From the Archive, August]. Pentecostalism was…

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Context Clues In his attempt to dramatize the birth of artificial intelligence [“The Gods of Logic,” Essay, July], Benjamín Labatut presents half-truths and decontextualized ideas. George Boole’s unification of logic…

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Masters of None The practice of interviewing government officials became commonplace in the United States by the 1880s, but was considered uncouth in parts of Europe through the end of…

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In Memoriam We at Harper’s Magazine are saddened by the death of our former managing editor and contributor Robert K. Manoff (1944–2024). Along with Lewis H. Lapham and others, Manoff oversaw the…

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Before the Law The Harper’s Forum on American policing [“Crime and Punishment,” April] opened with the searing image of George Floyd’s murder, inviting readers to consider how we got to…

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Billie’s Blues My father’s birth name was James Brown. Changing his surname was his expression of solidarity with Billie Holiday, and mandatory if he wanted to make it as a…

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The Tragedies of Zionism As a contributing editor of Harper’s Magazine, I read Bernard Avishai’s cover story [“Israel’s War Within,” Report, February] with surprise that I was encountering it at…

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Current Events Marzio G. Mian’s travelogue of the Volga River [“Behind the New Iron Curtain,” Letter from Russia, January] bears a profound sense of despair, well known to those of…

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Vichy-Washy Robert O. Paxton writes expertly on France’s selective amnesia about the Vichy regime [“The Discreet Eminence,” Reviews, December]. But the French are not the only ones guilty of this;…

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Renéssance Men In his review of All Desire Is a Desire for Being, Cynthia Haven’s selection of René Girard’s writings [“Overwhelming and Collective Murder,” Reviews, November], Sam Kriss contrasts Girard’s…

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Dems the Breaks It’s remarkable that a writer with Andrew Cockburn’s progressive ideals would deem a Joe Biden candidacy evil, as in “the lesser evil” versus Trump [“Against the Current,”…

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Unplanned Obsolescence What Justin E. H. Smith perceives as the younger generation’s parochial attitude toward art [“My Generation,” Essay, September] is in fact a healthy skepticism regarding claims about universalism…

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Science Fiction Jason Blakely offers a persuasive critique of the scientism that was widely apparent in the early days of the pandemic [“Doctor’s Orders,” Essay, August]. Public officials justified controversial…

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Ring the Alarm Jackson Lears chillingly demonstrates that the United States military favors neutral technocrats over conscientious officers when it comes to nuclear armaments [“Behind the Veil of Indifference,” Revision,…

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Rules of Engagement Benjamin Schwarz and Christopher Layne claim that Russia had warned the United States since the end of the Cold War that it would violate fundamental principles of…

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The Trauma Yacht Combining preposterous subject matter, pitch-perfect humor, and an irresistible voice, Lauren Oyler’s cover story [“I Really Didn’t Want to Go,” Letter from the Celebrity Beyond, May] has…

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Foul Is Fair Kyle Paoletta’s article [“The Incredible Disappearing Doomsday,” Criticism, April] tracks the shifting rhetoric of climate reporting in recent years from extreme pessimism to timid optimism. Is either…

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Speech Acts In support of his claim that the left is suppressing free speech [“A Climate of Fear,” Revision, March], Russell Jacoby dredges up some old news, including the PEN/Charlie…

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Live and Let Die Michel Houellebecq suggests that agitating for medical assistance in dying infantilizes those who seek relief when their suffering becomes intolerable [“The European Way to Die,” Revision,…

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Sun and Air Though Hillary Angelo paints a stark picture of solar energy development in the American West [“Boomtown,” Letter from Nevada, January], many studies suggest that solar farms offer…

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Revolutionary Letters Michael Robbins’s essay on the apocalypse [“Apocalypse Nowish,” Essay, December] is a prime example of climate defeatism, a misguided trend in writing about the environment that privileges pessimism…

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Three’s a Crowd I greatly appreciated Andrew Cockburn’s piece about the enduring views of my husband, Walter Karp [“Party Walls,” Letter from Washington, November]. Throughout his career, Walter articulated ideas…

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In Memoriam Harper’s Magazine is deeply saddened by the death of our dear friend and longtime contributing editor Barbara Ehrenreich (1941–2022). Her classic book Nickel and Dimed, which chronicles the…

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A Shock to the System “Can a brain implant treat drug addiction?” This is the question Zachary Siegel poses in his recent article, featuring four individuals addicted to opioids [“A…

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Body Politic It’s fitting that Andrew Cockburn’s excellent overview of abortion politics [“The Fight to Choose,” Letter from Washington, August] begins with a dead woman: Savita Halappanavar, who died of…

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Lax Americana As the Biden Administration escalates one conflict with a nuclear power in Europe, and stokes another in Asia, it’s encouraging to read Daniel Bessner’s call for a foreign…

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Remembering Lewis H. Lapham

The Letters of Lewis H. Lapham and Henry A. Kissinger

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Letters

Letters

Remembering Lewis H. Lapham

The Letters of Lewis H. Lapham and Henry A. Kissinger

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January 2025

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