November 2008
November 2008 Cover

Features

A Boy's Life

What would you do if your son wanted to be a girl? Some doctors have a new and troubling answer.

Their Own Worst Enemy

China is stunningly bad at managing its own reputation. Here's why.

PROFILE

The Lightning Rod

Michelle Rhee's plan to revolutionize D.C. schools

Web-only

INTERVIEWS:

Crusader of the Classrooms

Michelle Rhee, the young chancellor of the D.C. public school system, talks about her career path, what makes a good teacher, and her efforts to transform a struggling school district

MAP

Sea Change

The arctic's radically changing geography [Web only: Video: "The American Arctic"]

First Person Plural

The neuroscience of identity

Web-only

INTERVIEWS:

Song of My Selves

Psychologist Paul Bloom reflects on happiness, desire, memory, and the chaotic community that lives inside every human mind

The Things He Carried

Adventures in airport security

Why I Blog

The feedback is personal and brutal, but the connection with readers is intoxicating. [Web only: Video: "Your Brain on Blog"]

EDITOR'S NOTE

About the Redesign

Quick Study

Ghetto tax; Taliban talking points; biblical trauma

GALLERY

Lights

GALLERY

Hummer Ride

GALLERY

It's Mutual

GALLERY

Red Meat Nation

GALLERY

Vote Now

GALLERY

Fairy Tale

POETRY

My Career in Radio

POETRY

Father Andrews

In a Word

Eloquence contretemps; ages of fable

Web-only

THE PUZZLER:

Obedience School

ADVICE

What's Your Problem?

Avoiding annihilation and other advice

dispatches

CIVILIZATION

Sunstroked

Why France’s religious strife melts away in Marseille

SPORT

Buffalo Shuffle

Can a deal with Toronto save an American football team—and its decaying hometown?

LANGUAGE

Freedom’s Curse

Why Washington’s crusade against swearing on the airwaves is f*cked up

CAMPAIGNS

All the Right Moves

Will former NBA all-star Kevin Johnson become the next mayor of Sacramento?

PUBLIC WORKS

Turkish Bath

A new dam could submerge one of the world’s richest historical sites. [Web only: Slideshow: "Drowning Hasankeyf"]

DESIGN

A Question of Balance

How do you redesign The Atlantic? [Web only: Slideshow: "150 Years of Atlantic Covers"]

DRINK

The Bitter Beginning

Learning to love a bracing Italian liqueur

TRAVEL

The Gangster In My Tub

The author finds himself in hot water at a Japanese onsen. [Web only: Slideshow: "Eternal Spring"]

TECHNOLOGY

Self-Reliance 2008

Like your Leatherman? Love your iPhone? Still to come: the ultimate open-source ultragadget

Books

EDITOR’S CHOICE

The Reel Thing

An infuriating, idiosyncratic critic can’t help but be elegiac in cataloguing the history of film.

Should Women Rule?

A clutch of books suggests they can’t rule like men. But there are other ways to run the world.

Torch Song

Remembering the language of lyrics

Cruel and Unusual

V. S. Naipaul has produced works of extraordinary skill— and lived a life of equally extraordinary callousness.

Cover to Cover

Du Maurier gets her due; Julia Glass's latest; the ruins of the railroads; SCottishness debunked; and more

Columns

CULTURE AND COMMERCE

The Case for Debt

Public anxiety over “excessive” consumer debt has a long, and misguided, history. By Virginia Postrel

MOVING PICTURES

An Atheist Walks Into a Bar …

Bill Maher’s spiritual journey

CONTENT

He Saw It Coming

The forgotten filmmaker who anticipated our modern media madness

 

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