Archive

Explore 165 Years of Atlantic Journalism

Our digital archive gives you unprecedented access to the ideas and stories that shaped American history—from 1857 to today.

Or, select a topic below to start your search.

Special Project

The Atlantic Writers Project

Contemporary Atlantic writers reflect on 25 voices from the archives who helped shape the publication—and the nation.

Browse By Issue

View All

Scroll →

Editor’s Picks

Nathan Benn / Getty
One Nation, Slightly Divisible
The electoral map of the 2000 presidential race became famous: big blocks of red (denoting states that went for Bush) stretched across the heartland, with brackets of blue (denoting states for Gore) along the coasts. Our Blue America correspondent has ventured repeatedly into Red territory. He asks the question—after September 11, a pressing one—Do our differences effectively split us into two nations, or are they just cracks in a still-united whole?
David Brooks
December 2001 Issue
AP
As We May Think
“Consider a future device … in which an individual stores all his books, records, and communications, and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility. It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his memory.”
Vannevar Bush
July 1945 Issue
Library of Congress
If the Atomic Bomb Had Not Been Used
Was Japan already beaten before the August 1945 bombings?
Karl T. Compton
December 1946 Issue
Philip Toledano
Why Women Still Can’t Have It All
It’s time to stop fooling ourselves, says a woman who left a position of power: the women who have managed to be both mothers and top professionals are superhuman, rich, or self-employed. If we truly believe in equal opportunity for all women, here’s what has to change.
Anne-Marie Slaughter
July/August 2012 Issue
Guy Billout
Is Google Making Us Stupid?
What the Internet is doing to our brains
Nicholas Carr
July/August 2008 Issue
Stephan Savoia / AP
Why Americans Hate the Media
Why has the media establishment become so unpopular? Perhaps the public has good reason to think that the media’s self-aggrandizement gets in the way of solving the country’s real problems.
James Fallows
February 1996 Issue
Mark Pernice
The Curious Case of Jesus’s Wife
Lab tests have suggested that a papyrus scrap mentioning Jesus’s wife is authentic. Why do most scholars believe it’s fake?
Joel Baden and Candida Moss
December 2014 Issue

Discover Atlantic writers

Ta-Nehisi Coates
Coates, the author of Between the World and Me, wrote “The Case for Reparations” as a national correspondent for The Atlantic.
Virginia Woolf
Woolf was a novelist and a pioneer of literary modernism.
Rachel L. Carson
Before writing Silent Spring, Carson made her mark as an environmental journalist with the Atlantic essay “Undersea.”
E. B. White
White was an essayist, a novelist, and a grammarian. His Atlantic essay “Death of a Pig” was a nonfiction prototype for Charlotte’s Web.
Rebecca West
West’s reporting on her travels through the Balkans, published in The Atlantic in 1941, was compiled in the book Black Lamb and Grey Falcon.
Charles Dickens
One of the most popular writers of his time, Dickens was the author of works including A Christmas Carol and A Tale of Two Cities.
Anna Deavere Smith
Smith is an Atlantic contributing writer, a playwright, and an actor.
W. H. Auden
Auden published his first poem for The Atlantic in 1939, the year he emigrated from England to the United States.
Kurt Vonnegut
Vonnegut was the author of 14 novels, as well as numerous short-story collections, plays, and works of nonfiction.

Scroll →

Sections

The Print Edition

Archive

Explore 165 Years of Atlantic Journalism

The Atlantic Writers Project

Browse By Issue

Editor’s Picks

One Nation, Slightly Divisible

As We May Think

If the Atomic Bomb Had Not Been Used

Why Women Still Can’t Have It All

Is Google Making Us Stupid?

Why Americans Hate the Media

The Curious Case of Jesus’s Wife

Discover Atlantic writers

Ta-Nehisi Coates

Virginia Woolf

Rachel L. Carson

E. B. White

Rebecca West

Charles Dickens

Anna Deavere Smith

W. H. Auden

Kurt Vonnegut