The Insourcing Boom
An exploration of the startling, sustainable, just-getting-started return of manufacturing to the United States
December 2012
In This Issue
James Fallows explains why the future of industry is in America, Jeffrey Goldberg makes the case for more guns, Ann Patchett describes her battle with Amazon, Isaac Chotiner laments Salman Rushdie's decline, and more
Features
Mr. China Comes to America
How labor developments in China and new technology in the U.S. may reverse the decades-long relocation of American jobs to Asia
The Case for More Guns (And More Gun Control)
How do we reduce gun crime when Americans already own nearly 300 million firearms? Maybe by allowing more people to carry them.
The Bookstore Strikes Back
When Nashville lost its only in-town bookstores, the author, a novelist, decided to step into the breach.
Fiction: Reply to a Dead Man
"My heart started beating rapidly after the third time I read the letter. I could have sat there and guessed for a hundred years and never come up with what my brother had to say." A short story
Get the digital edition of this issue.
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
Jesse Lenz A Boat of Biblical Proportions
For a new theme park, Creationists (with a little help from a geneticist, some Amish men, and generous tax breaks) are building a replica of Noah’s ark—exactly as God instructed.
Cody Haltom Kisses and Hugs in the Office
How the once-intimate sign-off is feminizing the workplace, for better or worse
Paul Kitagaki Jr./The Sacramento Bee/ZumaPress.com Perks and Recreation
In Silicon Valley, a new wave of tech companies is trying to enforce fun.
John Cuneo The Data Vigilante
Students aren’t the only ones cheating—some professors are, too. Uri Simonsohn is out to bust them.
Columns
Comedy Central The Demonic Genius of Daniel Tosh
The Comedy Central star brings the Colosseum to your couch.
Kristian Hammerstad What Makes Her Click
Intel's Genevieve Bell talks about why we adopt some gadgets and spurn others—and why tech companies underestimate female users.
Books
Jack Hughes The Education of Virginia Woolf
The novelist's literary essays celebrated reading for the love of it.
Books of the Year 2012
The Atlantic's literary editor picks the five best of the crop.
Horst Friedrichs/Anzenberger/Redux How the Mullahs Won
Salman Rushdie’s artistic decline
Alice Munro's rural Ontario (Robert Estall/Corbis) Cover to Cover
An Alice Munro collection that's "autobiographical in feeling," if not in fact; Zadie Smith's uneven new novel; and more
The Conversation
Wesley Bedrosian
