Section: The Atlantic (USA)
Flat-Earthers Have a Wild New Theory About Forests
Something tremendous is happening; over the last few weeks, without too many of its globe-headed detractors noticing, a surprisingly vast community on the tattered fringes of intellectual orthodoxy is in turmoil. A bizarre new theory has turned the flat earth upside down. The flat earth is still flat, but now it’s dotted with tiny...
Crepes in Hiroshima and Architecture in Homs: The Week in Global-Affairs Writing
War Can Change What We Eat. Just Ask Hiroshima. Julie Makinen | Los Angeles Times “Before the war, the savory crepes—whose lineage can be traced to Chinese pancakes known as jianbing—were sold as kids’ snacks throughout Hiroshima. Then, after 1945, war widows anxious to make ends meet started opening okonomiyaki stalls and some converted...
The World Comes to a Tiny Town: Eastport’s Object Lesson in Globalization
A big theme in this election year is that other countries are swindling, out-negotiating, under-bidding, and generally beating the United States in the race for better jobs and companies. With a tougher stance, at least according to one candidate, the U.S. will be back in command.On our return trip to tiny Eastport, Maine, whose scheme for...
The United Nations: What’s the Point?
What if the United Nations didn’t exist? It’s a question easily answered, because for nearly all of human history, it didn’t. History “teaches us that order in international relations is the exception, rather than the rule,” Kevin Rudd, the former Australian prime minister, writes in a new report on the uncertain future of the...
An Amusement Park in Kathmandu and Outdated Anthems Abroad: The Week in Global-Affairs Writing
Once a Bucknell Professor, Now the Commander of an Ethiopian Rebel Army Joshua Hammer | The New York Times Magazine “On a hot July afternoon in 2015, Nega packed a suitcase, bade his wife farewell and was driven by comrades to John F. Kennedy International Airport. He carried a laissez-passer from the Eritrean government, allowing him a one-time...
Which Republicans Oppose Donald Trump? A Cheat Sheet
Hillary Clinton leads Donald Trump among several key demographic groups, but she has also locked up a surprisingly large portion of one small but notable niche: neoconservatives.In an interview with Der Spiegel published on Friday, Paul Wolfowitz, who served as deputy secretary of defense during George W. Bush’s presidency, said he would...
The Geopolitical Therapist
Recently I sat down with Vice President Joe Biden to explore whether his approach to foreign policy challenges, and his patterns of interaction with global leaders, constituted something distinctive enough to call “The Biden Doctrine,” which I wrote about here in The Atlantic. In a fascinating, wide-ranging discussion that touched on...
Steve Bannon’s Bad Day: Allegations of Voter Fraud and Domestic Violence
Barely a week into the job, Donald Trump’s new campaign CEO is already facing harsh scrutiny over a 20-year-old domestic-violence charge and an allegation of voter-registration fraud.On Thursday night, the New York Post and other outlets reported that Stephen Bannon was charged with misdemeanor domestic violence, battery, and dissuading a...
The Radical Anti-Conservatism of Stephen Bannon
Stephen Bannon, who recently took over as Donald Trump’s campaign manager, once gave an interview, while promoting his 2010 film, “Fire From the Heartland: the Awakening of the Conservative Woman,” where he argued that Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, and Ann Coulter pose an existential threat to the left.“These women cut to the heart of the...
Is NATO Redundant? We’d Better Hope So
This month, Jeffrey Tayler wrote a piece responding to Donald Trump’s unprecedented shrug over whether the United States would uphold its treaty obligations if a NATO ally were invaded during his hypothetical presidency. Tayler argued, in effect, that Trump had stumbled on a good idea in thinking about radically reassessing America’s...
