We’ve Lost the Plot
Our constant need for entertainment has blurred the line between fiction and reality—on television, in American politics, and in our everyday lives.
March 2023
In This Issue
How everything became entertainment, activist short sellers, the French panic over le wokisme, and a nuclear-power reboot. Plus living with disability, a path forward for Republicans, Salman Rushdie, swearing, Gatsby, new fiction, and more.
Cover Story
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The Man Who Moves Markets
Carson Block uses covert techniques to uncover fraud for profit. Now he’s under investigation himself. Is he the hero of Wall Street, or the villain?
The French Are in a Panic Over le Wokisme
The nation’s vehement rejection of identity politics made me recalibrate my own views about woke ideology.
The Real Obstacle to Nuclear Power
It’s not environmentalists—it’s the nuclear-power industry itself.
Society Tells Me to Celebrate My Disability. What If I Don’t Want To?
On living with cerebral palsy
Fiction
Thomas Prior The Third Law of Magic
A short story
Dispatches
Illustration by Doug Chayka* The GOP Is Just Obnoxious
It’s why the party keeps losing elections.
Christopher Churchill Big-Sky Country
Photographs that capture traces of American industry, class divides, and westward expansion
Culture & Critics
Oliver Munday A New Way to Read Gatsby
F. Scott Fitzgerald never explicitly states Jay Gatsby’s race.
Benedict Evans / August The Miraculous Salman Rushdie
His enchanting new novel is a triumph.
Illustration by Paul Spella. Sources: Vladimir Pomortzeff / Alamy; Art Media / Print Collector / Getty. Did George Washington Burn New York?
Americans disparaged the British as arsonists. But the rebels fought with fire too.
Johannes Hähle / Lifestyle Pictures / Alamy The Masterpiece No One Wanted to Save
Censored and then forgotten, Anatoly Kuznetsov’s Babi Yar, about the Nazi occupation of Kyiv, is again painfully relevant.
Departments
The Atlantic The Commons: How Germany Avoided Its Own ‘Lost Cause’ Movement
Readers respond to our December 2022 cover story and more.
Tim Lahan An Ode to Swearing
A well-turned curse can remind you of the power of language.
Poetry
Gabriela Pesqueira / The Atlantic
