April 2001

In This Issue
David Brooks, “The Organization Kid”; William Langewiesche, “The Profits of Doom”; Richard V. Allen, “The Day Reagan Was Shot”; Steve Olsen, “The Genetic Archaeology of Race”; fiction by Jim Shepard; and much more.
Articles
77 North Washington Street
A Year in the Life
A microhistory of an extraordinary literary collaboration
The Organization Kid
The young men and women of America's future elite work their laptops to the bone, rarely question authority, and happily accept their positions at the top of the heap as part of the natural order of life
Uncivil Aviation
How a small city's airport became the capital of air rage
The Ergonomic Rocking Chair
In handmade rocking chairs, and in mass-produced ones as well, beauty is as beauty does
The Nonconformist
Our author reconsiders A.J.P. Taylor and the question his work provokes: Is history just one damned thing after another?
No Apologies Necessary
An unsure effort to rescue the reputation of Carson McCullers
The Profits of Doom
One of the most polluted cities in America learns to capitalize on its contamination
Thy Will Be Done
Blind studies and unanswered prayers
The Genetic Archaeology of Race
DNA analysis is explaining where "racial difference" comes from—and what it does and doesn't mean. The study of human genetic variation has become the most contentious area in modern science
The Gun Lobby
A short story
The Descent
"Street of Russian Goods Welcome!"
In a remote and still-sensitive border region Russians and Chinese are enjoying economic rapprochement
A Revolutionary Itinerary
An Englishman tours historic battlefields in Massachusetts and New York
A Brand-New Olmsted
The discovery and replanting of a century-old lost landscape
The Day Reagan Was Shot
The author reveals previously undisclosed transcripts of the deliberations in the White House Situation Room
In Lockstep With the Seasons
Cooking with nothing but what's in season seems punishingly severe as winter ends, but the exercise has year-round benefits
Letters to the Editors
Shaking Up the Rock
A crippled sub is reviving talk about Gibraltar's colonial status
