Lebanon’s Other Explosion

When Disasters Become the Norm, People Stop Paying Attention—But I’m Still Telling This Country’s Stories

It was the explosion that drove home to me how irrevocably Lebanon was broken.

Not the horrific August 4, 2020 Beirut port explosion, when a warehouse full of ammonium nitrate exploded, killing more than 200 and generating shock and sympathy around the world. Recently, that explosion made it back into the headlines when a protest over the investigation into its causes provoked deadly street clashes.

I’m talking about a different explosion, which took place on August 15, 2021 and killed more than 30 men and injured dozens more in a village in …

by Abby Sewell | October 21, 2021

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A mural on a wall in the former Jewish ghetto of Vilnius

Where I Go: Lithuania’s Vanished Center of Jewish Life

In Vilna, Where Thousands Were Murdered, I Learned How Difficult It Is to Mourn an Absence

By David Nasaw | October 18, 2021

I did it all backward. Instead of taking my research trips before writing my book, like any normal historian would have, I’d waited. Only after I had completed my first …

Bringing Down the Bra

Since the 19th Century, Women Have Abandoned Restrictive Undergarments While Pursuing Social and Political Freedom

by Einav Rabinovitch-Fox | October 14, 2021

In a recent Instagram conversation with fans, actress Gillian Anderson articulated what many women are thinking these days: “I’m not wearing a bra anymore … it’s just too f**king uncomfortable.”

The …

The Female Cooks Who Shaped French Cuisine

A New Generation of Chefs Is Melding the Domestic and Professional—And Moving Toward Equality in the Restaurant Kitchen

by Rachel E. Black | October 13, 2021

As I perch on a stool in her kitchen in Lyon, I think about what makes Sonia Ezgulian’s cooking so compelling. Ezgulian, who is also a journalist, is well known …

What Does the U.S. Owe Climate Refugees?

Central Americans Are Fleeing an Ecological Disaster They Didn’t Cause

by Michael B. Smith | October 11, 2021

Last fall, back-to-back major hurricanes, Eta and Iota, slammed into the Caribbean coast of Central America, creating storm surges and flooding from Belize to Panama. In parts of Honduras and …

Which of Bluebeard’s Wives Are We?

A Fairytale for Our Moment Challenges Us to Face Reality—Even If We’d Rather Hide From It

by A.A. Balaskovits | October 7, 2021

There’s magic in fairy tales, the sort of magic that allows us to make sense of our world thanks to the help of long-dead storytellers. If we listen closely to …

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