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…
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.…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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?…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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,…
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…
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…
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:…
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].…
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…
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…
The Fall of Men Barrett Swanson’s take on Evryman retreats and the “new men’s groups” [“Men at Work,” Report, November] is understandably skeptical. As a veteran of several of these…
Lost Clauses The participants in the Forum on the Constitution [“Constitution in Crisis,” October] offer wonderful insights. However, they do not sufficiently celebrate the Constitution’s virtues—nor do they address its…
Why We Fight War with Iran, writes Kevin Baker, would “make our war in Vietnam look like a walk in the park” [“The Deep State of Dementia,” Easy Chair, September].…
In Memoriam We at Harper’s Magazine are deeply saddened by the untimely death of our former contributing editor Edwin Dobb. He wrote many essays for the magazine, including “Pennies from…
Socialism and Barbarism According to Aaron Lake Smith, who discusses the works of Vasily Grossman alongside my biography of the writer [“The Trials of Vasily Grossman,” Reviews, July], my book…
Visible Hands Marilynne Robinson’s essay [“Is Poverty Necessary?” June] describes the quest for understanding that drove her to study the great political economists, culminating in her discovery of the contributions…
Back to the Future I found Kevin Baker’s piece on the historical antecedents of the Green New Deal [“Where Our New World Begins,” Essay, May] perhaps the best essay I’ve…
Brexit Wounds On the matter of Britain’s membership in the European Union, which Lionel Shriver discussed in her fascinating recent column [“No Exit,” Easy Chair, April], I am a reluctant…
Sport for Joe Andrew Cockburn’s portrayal of Joe Biden’s legislative career was seriously distorted [“No Joe!,” Letter from Washington, March]. As Biden’s European policy adviser on the Senate Foreign Relations…