Shooting Britney
How a French journalist recruited a posse of Brazilian parking attendants and pizza-delivery guys and helped create Hollywood’s most addictive entertainment product
April 2008
In This Issue
David Samuels reports on the world of the Hollywood of paparazzi; Ross Douthat on contemporary Hollywood's return to the 1970s; Lawrence Scott Sheets reports on uranium smuggling by small-time Russian crooks; Robert D. Kaplan on the new Calcutta; Christopher Hitchens on Ezra Pound; Virginia Postrel on the healing power of hospital decor; Clive Crook on the failure of the Kyoto Protocol; Joshua Hammer discovers an idyllic Kashmir; and much more.
Features
The Return of the Paranoid Style
How the Iraq War and George W. Bush sent the movie industry back to its favorite era—the 1970s [Web only: Video: "Hollywood's Vietnam Moment"]
A Smuggler’s Story
Meet Oleg Khintsagov, a small-time hustler in Russia who can get you dried fish, furs, Turkish chandeliers … and weapons-grade uranium. He’s not the only one.
Oh! Kolkata!
Calcutta has been renamed. Now, with investment on the rise, tech companies moving in, and a growing middle class, can it be reborn? [Web only: Slideshow: "The Streets of Kolkata"]
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The Case for Partisanship
Why polarization is good for us
Calendar
December Madness; two, three, many Iraqs?; To the moon, India!
Primary Sources
Choking in the clutch; Hungarian xenophobes; booze and bedlam at the ball game
Bay of Capitalist Pigs
How Havana might change after Castro
Body Counting
Why even the most-dubious statistics influence our thinking
Sins of Emission
Kyoto was a sham and a failure—so how has it become a model for future anti-warming efforts?
Books
Black Saturday
Editor’s Choice: How the Blitz saved Britain
‘I Am Joan Crawford’
Through sheer force of will, Hollywood’s most infamous single mother constructed a persona seductive, repellent, and almost impossible not to watch.
Keeping a Civil Tongue
An English critic decries the decline of his language—and his civilization.
A Revolutionary Simpleton
A new account of Ezra Pound’s early years reveals his volatile genius—and prefigures the madness that would claim him.
Cover to Cover
A guide to additional releases: the Dante club; reconsidering Lincoln-Douglas; the myth of the Delta blues
Paradise Regained?
Kashmir tries to reclaim its once-celebrated tranquility. [Web only: Slideshow: "'Only Kashmir'"]
A Papaya Grows in Holyoke
A crime-plagued mill town in Massachusetts has discovered the roots of urban renewal.
The Art of Healing
How better aesthetics in hospitals can make for happier—and healthier—patients [Web only: Slideshow: "Wellness by Design"]
Word Court
Cut to the chase; dictionary dilemmas
