My President Was Black
A history of the first African American White House—and of what came next
January/February 2017
In This Issue
The legacy of the first black U.S. president, what makes products popular, and a physician’s guide to sleep. Plus, despair and hope under a Trump presidency, Glenn Beck’s regrets, and more.
Cover Story
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The Four-Letter Code to Selling Just About Anything
What makes things cool?
An Enemy of the Kremlin Dies in London
Who killed Alexander Perepilichny?
How to Sleep
Should you drink more coffee? Should you take melatonin? Can you train yourself to need less sleep? A physician’s guide to sleep in a stressful age.
In Defense of Facts
A new history of the essay gets the genre all wrong, and in the process endorses a misleading idea of knowledge.
Dispatches
WG600; Lucas Jackson / Reuters Despair and Hope in Trump’s America
Americans are optimistic about the communities they live in—but not their nation. Why?
Christopher DeLorenzo Awesomeness Is Everything
Why encountering vastness makes us more spiritual, generous, and content
John Cuneo Glenn Beck’s Regrets
His paranoid style paved the road for Trumpism. Now he fears what’s been unleashed.
Tastemade Big in Japan: Tiny Food
The joy of cooking in miniature
Edmon de Haro How Frackers Beat OPEC
The surprising ingenuity of the U.S. shale-oil industry—and its global consequences
J. Scott Applewhite / AP Can an Ex-President Be Happy?
What Obama can learn from Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush
Alvaro Dominguez Bulletproofing America
Could technology help prevent mass shootings?
San Diego Opera Time-Travel Therapy
Can a faux 1950s downtown sharpen the minds of dementia patients?
Joe McKendry Aldous Huxley to George Orwell: My Dystopia Is Better Than Yours
A very short book excerpt
The Culture File
Nigel Buchanan The Ninja Cure for Anxiety
The self-medicating effects of extreme-fitness TV
Reinhard Dirscherl / Getty What the Octopus Knows
A scuba-diving philosopher explores invertebrate intelligence and consciousness.
Ashley Mackenzie The Uncoupling
Her marriage broken, her house dismantled, Rachel Cusk has broken apart her fiction, too, remaking it in new ways.
Kevin Van Aelst The Sugar Wars
Science can’t prove it and the industry denies it, but Gary Taubes is convinced that the sweet stuff kills.
The Ordinary Perpetrators and Victims in the Boko Haram Kidnappings
Helon Habila’s new book recounts the horror and revives the call to take notice.
Departments
Pete Souza / White House Obama, Race, and America’s Future
In difficult times, the work of explaining America to itself and the world becomes ever more crucial.
Justin Renteria The Conversation
Readers respond to stories in our October issue on America’s monopoly problem and the plight of the substitute teacher.
Graham Roumieu Who Is the Worst Leader of All Time?
A big question
Poetry
Assisted Living
A poem
