In Memoriam Harper’s Magazine is saddened by the loss of Nelson W. Aldrich Jr., who served as an editor at the magazine from 1971 to 1975. Best known as the…

Read more

Eros and Villains Milan Kundera once said that all great love stories begin and end outside of consummation. Agnes Callard seems to agree, though with a less romantic sentiment [“The…

Read more

Xi Who Must Be Obeyed Ian Buruma’s analysis of China’s historical evolution and President Xi Jinping’s quest for national unity is informative and well supported [“The Great Wall of Steel,”…

Read more

A Note to Subscribers Because of postal delays and a national paper shortage, the January and February issues were delivered later than usual. We apologize for the wait, and hope…

Read more

Bavarian Rhapsody I don’t think Lauren Oyler was quite fair in accusing W. G. Sebald of excising all evidence of modernity [“Desperately Seeking Sebald,” Review, December], particularly when she lays…

Read more

Tomorrow Wars Too often, the news cycle neglects the long-term existential threats to human civilization beyond climate change and environmental destruction. So I was pleased that Rachel Riederer [“Ad Astra,”…

Read more

That’s Baseball, Suzyn Will Bardenwerper’s portrait of baseball’s fading farm system [“Minor Threat,” Letter from Pulaski, October] brought me back to summer evenings in the Fifties, watching minor-league games in…

Read more

Have You Heard? I felt torn reading Joseph Bernstein’s essay [“Bad News,” Report, September]. Bernstein is correct to note that the anti-disinformation industry is largely composed of elites alarmed by…

Read more

Mindsweeper The roster of failed suicide-prediction tests that Will Stephenson explores in his essay [“The Undiscovered Country,” Miscellany, August] reminded me of a time in the mid-Fifties when an eager…

Read more

Past Imperfect Matthew Karp is right to worry that reducing America’s racial history to biblical or biological terms [“History As End,” Essay, July] leaves out critical social and historical context.…

Read more

Black Mirror Barrett Swanson’s report on collab houses [“The Anxiety of Influencers,” Letter from Los Angeles, June] reminded me of another excellent piece of writing: George Saunders’s 2003 short story…

Read more

The Tangled Web As a journalist who has spent seven years reporting on war and conflict in the field, I have often butted heads with Washington-based analysts and editors who…

Read more

Death from Above Reading Lauren Markham’s essay about human-animal conflict resolution [“The Crow Whisperer,” Miscellany, April], I was reminded of a strange experience my own family had with birds. My…

Read more

Crossing the Streams The moment cinephilia is tied to personal nostalgia, as it is in Martin Scorsese’s essay [“Il Maestro,” March], intellectual distinctions become tenuous. Scorsese laments the devaluing of…

Read more

A Modest Proposal In Andrew Cockburn’s recent essay [“Hard Times,” Letter from Washington, February], I was quoted as calling for a New Deal 2.0. I would like to elaborate here…

Read more

In Memoriam We at Harper’s Magazine are deeply saddened by the loss of our former contributing editor Barry Lopez (1945–2020), who died on Christmas Day. Over the course of four…

Read more

A History of the Future Rana Dasgupta’s absorbing essay [“The Silenced Majority,” December] leaves an important issue unresolved: What will the Western working classes do when they realize they’ve lost?…

Read more

Life Is Elsewhere Garth Greenwell is correct to question the concept of “relevance” as it is commonly applied to art [“Making Meaning,” Essay, November]. His arguments make me wonder about…

Read more

First Class Laurent Dubreuil begins his essay on identity politics [“Nonconforming,” Essay, September] with a peevish rant against the notion of identifying first-generation college students as a cohort on campus…

Read more

Bitter Pill Naomi Jackson’s essay [“A Litany for Survival,” Memoir, September] humanizes the disconcerting but clear evidence of health disparities based on race. These statistics, established in the medical literature…

Read more

Read more

Promised Land As organizers mentioned in Audrea Lim’s essay on community land trusts [“We Shall Not Be Moved,” Report, July], we wanted to expand on why we have pursued this…

Read more

I Is Another I agree with Richard Russo [“The Lives of Others,” Essay, June] when he says that “writers use people.” Writers of imaginative prose must be skilled at verisimilitude,…

Read more

Popular Semantics Thomas Frank’s brilliant article [“The Pessimistic Style in American Politics,” Essay, May] sheds light on the curious use of the word “populist” to describe authoritarians, and the significance…

Read more

Ordinary People Thomas Chatterton Williams provides a remarkably elitist take on Portugal’s immigration policies [“The Wanderer’s Port,” Easy Chair, April]. His perspective appears to have been shaped solely by his…

Read more

Fables of the Reconstruction Kevin Baker’s essay [“Losing My Religion,” Easy Chair, March] voices a concern I’ve seen articulated with increasing frequency and alarm since the election of Donald Trump:…

Read more

Radical Pique William Howe was not a “total radical,” as Thomas Meaney quotes me as saying in his report from last summer’s National Conservatism Conference [“Trumpism After Trump,” Report, February].…

Read more

Breaking the News It was gratifying to see Greg Jackson revive the ideas of Neil Postman in his meditation on the media [“Vicious Cycles,” Essay, January], for Postman highlighted the…

Read more