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…

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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,”…

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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…

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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…

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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,”…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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.…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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?…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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,…

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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…

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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…

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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:…

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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].…

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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…

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A Shack of One’s Own Thanks to Wes Enzinna [“Gimme Shelter,” Letter from California, December], I finally understand why millennials hate baby boomers. In many ways, my own experience has…

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