A Boy's Life
What would you do if your son wanted to be a girl? Some doctors have a new and troubling answer.
November 2008
In This Issue
Andrew Sullivan on why he blogs; Hanna Rosin on transgender children; Jeffrey Goldberg on the idiocy of airline security; James Fallows on China's neurosis; Christopher Hitchens on V.S. Naipaul; Virginia Postrel makes the case for debt; Christopher Hitchens on Philip Roth; poetry by Garrison Keillor; and much more.
Features
Their Own Worst Enemy
China is stunningly bad at managing its own reputation. Here's why.
The Lightning Rod
Michelle Rhee's plan to revolutionize D.C. schools
Sea Change
The arctic's radically changing geography [Web only: Video: "The American Arctic"]
First Person Plural
The neuroscience of identity
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"]
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Subscribers can access PDF versions of every issue in The Atlantic archive. When you subscribe, you’ll not only enjoy all of The Atlantic’s writing, past and present; you’ll also be supporting a bright future for our journalism.Dispatches
Sunstroked
Why France’s religious strife melts away in Marseille
Buffalo Shuffle
Can a deal with Toronto save an American football team—and its decaying hometown?
Mike Byers 2008, Levy Creative Management, NYC Freedom’s Curse
Why Washington’s crusade against swearing on the airwaves is f*cked up
All the Right Moves
Will former NBA all-star Kevin Johnson become the next mayor of Sacramento?
Turkish Bath
A new dam could submerge one of the world’s richest historical sites. [Web only: Slideshow: "Drowning Hasankeyf"]
A Question of Balance
How do you redesign The Atlantic? [Web only: Slideshow: "150 Years of Atlantic Covers"]
The Bitter Beginning
Learning to love a bracing Italian liqueur
The Gangster In My Tub
The author finds himself in hot water at a Japanese onsen. [Web only: Slideshow: "Eternal Spring"]
Jason Schneider) Self-Reliance 2008
Like your Leatherman? Love your iPhone? Still to come: the ultimate open-source ultragadget
Books
The Kobal Collection) 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
The Case for Debt
Public anxiety over “excessive” consumer debt has a long, and misguided, history. By Virginia Postrel
An Atheist Walks Into a Bar …
Bill Maher’s spiritual journey
He Saw It Coming
The forgotten filmmaker who anticipated our modern media madness
Also in this issue
What's Your Problem?
Avoiding annihilation and other advice
Other articles in this issue
Quick Study
Ghetto tax; Taliban talking points; biblical trauma
In a Word
Eloquence contretemps; ages of fable
