The Bad Guys Are Winning
If the 20th century was the story of slow, uneven progress toward the victory of liberal democracy over other ideologies—communism, fascism, virulent nationalism—the 21st century is, so far, a story of the reverse.
December 2021
In This Issue
The autocrats are winning, the antiquities cop, death comes to the boxing ring, and France’s God complex. Plus the end of trust, the advertising singularity, BBQ chips, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, Mozart and forgiveness, new fiction by hurmat kazmi, and more.
Cover Story
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The Tomb Raiders of the Upper East Side
Inside the Manhattan DA’s Antiquities Trafficking Unit
Can a Boxer Return to the Ring After Killing?
In 2019, Charles Conwell unintentionally ended Patrick Day’s life with his fists. Now he’s trying to make sense of his life, and boxing itself.
Why Is France So Afraid of God?
How the country came to view religion as a threat to national identity
Fiction
Ilan Rubin / Trunk Archive The Armpits of White Boys
A short story
Dispatches
Paul Spella / The Atlantic The Singularity Is Here
Artificially intelligent advertising technology is poisoning our societies.
Albert Tercero The End of Trust
Suspicion is undermining the American economy.
Jason Fulford and Tamara Shopsin The Package Is the Message
American consumers can’t resist the lure of a well-designed container.
Naomi Harris Snowbirds
Technicolor scenes from a bygone Miami Beach
Culture & Critics
Illustration by Oliver Munday. Sources: Miljan Živković / Getty; Vm / Getty The Martial Art I Can’t Live Without
Brazilian jiu-jitsu has been compared to chess, philosophy, even psychoanalysis. But its real appeal is on the mat.
Dani Choi Animals of the Future
Lizards’ feet are morphing, squid are shrinking, rats’ teeth are getting shorter. What’s in store for us?
Katrien De Blauwer The Miraculous Sound of Forgiveness
In his thrillingly transgressive opera The Marriage of Figaro, Mozart pulled off his most amazing musical feat.
Vedran Štimac Emerson Didn’t Practice the Self-Reliance He Preached
How Transcendentalism, the American philosophy that championed the individual, caught on in tight-knit Concord, Massachusetts
Departments
The Atlantic The Commons: Can Facebook Be Contained?
Readers respond to stories in our October and November 2021 issues.
Tim Lahan An Ode to Barbecue Potato Chips
Void of nutritional value, divorced from the intense culinary process that is actual barbecuing, irresistible
Poetry
Gabriela Pesqueira / The Atlantic 
Gabriela Pesqueira / The Atlantic
