It's been a remarkable year for The Atlantic Monthly—one during which we've published some of our most memorable and influential articles ever, and during which we were awarded three prestigious National Magazine Awards (for writing that ran in 2001). Most notable of our 2002 articles, of course, was William Langewiesche's much-talked about "American Ground" series, which in three installments told the dramatic story of the relief and recovery efforts at the World Trade Center site after September 11. But as a reminder of just how much other ground we've covered during the past twelve months, in this e-mail we'll briefly review the captivating variety of stories that we've featured on our cover this year. First, though, a quick note of sincere thanks to all of our readers: our newsstand sales have almost doubled this past year, which tells us that we're putting out a magazine that not only is getting critical acclaim but also is getting widely read. JANUARY The first new war of the twenty-first century demands unsentimental thinking about many subjects. In "The Hard Questions," distinguished Atlantic contributors addressed five essential subjects, including the role of the United States in world affairs; the state of Islamic civilization; the rhetoric of Osama bin Laden; the ethics of torture; and the inherent problems with U.S. "homeland defense." FEBRUARY The new century, Toby Lester wrote, in "Oh, Gods!," will probably see the diversity and the intensity of religion increase dramatically as a force in human affairs. New religions are springing up everywhere—by one estimate, at the rate of two or three a day. Old religions are mutating with Darwinian restlessness. And the big "problem religion" of the twenty-first century may not end up being Islam. MARCH Before it became the New World, Charles Mann argued, in "1491," the Western Hemisphere was vastly more populous and sophisticated than has been thought—an altogether more salubrious place to live at the time than, say, Europe. It might even be, Mann suggested, that the Amazon rain forest may be largely a human artifact. APRIL In "Churchill Takes a Fall," a wide-ranging review of new revisionist writing about Winston Churchill, the controversial writer Christopher Hitchens suggested that Churchill was ruthless, boorish, manipulative, myopic, and wrong about almost everything—except the thing that mattered most, his approach to fighting the Second World War. MAY What does Saddam Hussein see in himself that no one else in the world seems to see? Mark Bowden, the author of Black Hawk Down, interviewed Iraqi exiles who had formerly worked with Saddam, and in "Tales of the Tyrant" reconstructed—in lyrical, engrossing, and sobering detail—the intimate details of the Iraqi leader's daily life. JUNE With the Senate on the verge of banning human cloning, in "Cloning Trevor" Kyla Dunn asked the tough questions: Should all human cloning be banned? Is there an ethical difference between reproductive cloning, which aims to create people, and therapeutic cloning, which aims to create medical therapies? Granted rare access to the labs of Advanced Cell Technologies (the only U.S. group openly pursuing human therapeutic cloning), Dunn tracked the ACT's controversial work on Trevor Ross, a boy with a life-threatening genetic disorder whose desperate parents are hoping that cloning might offer him a cure. JULY/AUGUST Shortly after September 11, The Atlantic's national correspondent William Langewiesche was granted unique access to the recovery and removal effort at the World Trade Center site. Based for nine months at Public School 89, the elementary school that served as the effort's command center, Langewiesche climbed through the shifting debris with construction workers and engineers, crawled with survey parties through areas where ongoing collapses threatened the work on the surface, and descended below street level to areas where fires still burned and steel flowed in molten streams. The result was the breathtaking "American Ground: Unbuilding the World Trade Center," a three-part series—the longest piece of original reporting ever to run in The Atlantic—that began in the July/August issue and continued in September and October. SEPTEMBER In "Homeland Insecurity" Charles Mann profiled one of the nation's top security experts, Bruce Schneier, who has consistently been warning that the nation's approach to protecting itself since September 11 is all wrong. Forget "foolproof" technology, Schneier argues, like retinal scanners, computer firewalls, and huge interlinked databases. What we need are systems designed to "fail smartly." Otherwise our efforts at increased security will only make America more vulnerable than ever. OCTOBER We stand at a historical turning point that is as epochal for the Christian world as the original Reformation, Philip Jenkins argued in "The Next Christianity." During the past half century the center of gravity in the Christian world has moved decisively southward—to Africa, to Latin America, and to Asia—and this will have far-reaching implications not only for theology and religious practice but also for global society and politics. NOVEMBER Going to war with Iraq, The Atlantic's veteran national correspondent James Fallows argued in "The Fifty-First State," would mean shouldering all the responsibilities of an occupying power the moment victory was achieved—and that would mean that a troubled and complicated nation of 23 million people, many of them hostile to the United States, would become an administrative piece of America. Are we really ready for this kind of relationship? DECEMBER "The lifelong health problems of John F. Kennedy constitute one of the best-kept secrets of recent U.S. history," the presidential scholar Robert Dallek wrote in "A Picture of Health." Earlier in the year Dallek was given rare access to newly released Kennedy papers, including x-rays and prescription records, which revealed in stark detail that Kennedy's lifelong physical condition was far worse than had been imagined—and that the level of deception he maintained about it, especially during his presidency, was far greater. ............................................................................... In 2003, The Atlantic will begin publishing two annual double issues—one in January/February, which will be the next issue of the magazine that you will receive, and one (as we've done for the past two years) in July/August. Readers can expect the amount and the variety of what we publish on a yearly basis to remain the same. ............................................................................... * Give your family and friends a gift that is enlightening, stimulating and intelligent all at once. GIVE THE ATLANTIC. 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