Smithsonian Magazine: February 2009
Features
Lincoln's Contested Legacy
Great Emancipator or unreconstructed racist? Defender of civil liberties or subverter of the Constitution? Each generation evokes a different Lincoln. But who was he?
By Philip B. Kunhardt III
What Darwin Didn't Know
Today's scientists marvel that the 19th-century naturalist's grand vision of evolution is still the key to life
By Thomas Hayden
Twin Peaks
Their shared birth date is an intriguing coincidence, but what truly unites Darwin and Lincoln is how they shaped the modern world
By Adam Gopnik
Up Close at Carnival
What's really behind the raucous pre-lenten rite? An intrepid scholar hits the streets of Trinidad to find out
By Barbara Ehrenreich
Running the Bar
Braving storms with 20-foot seas, an elite group of ship pilots steers through one of the world's most treacherous waterways—the mouth of the Columbia River
By Matt Jenkins
The Freedom Riders
Fighting racial segregation at bus depots in the south nearly half a century ago, they were insulted, beaten and arrested. A new book catches up with them down the road
By Marian Smith Holmes
Howling Success
Wolves are flourishing again in the northern Rockies. Yet even as they're helping restore the balance of nature, they're also killing livestock—and reigniting a fierce controversy
By Frank Clifford
Departments
Indelible Images
Special Delivery
It took three generations to produce Wayne F. Miller's photograph of his newborn son
By Owen Edwards
Digs
Bodies of Evidence
Excavations at a cemetery in Thailand reveal a 4,000-year-old indigenous culture
By Andrew Lawler
My Kind of Town
Washed Ashore
The Pulitzer Prize-winning author delights in the island town's off-season
By Geraldine Brooks
From the Editor
Evolution and Equality
What did Darwin, Lincoln and the Freedom Riders have in common?
By Terence Monmaney
Wild Things
Wild Things:
Life as We Know It
Honeyeater birds, sea slugs, tree frogs, and more
By T.A. Frail, Megan Gambino, Laura Helmuth, Abigail Tucker and Sarah Zielinski
From the Castle
Thinking Ahead
In 1925, 10-year-old Orrin Nash gave all he could to help the Smithsonian. Now, the Institution looks for innovative ways to become more financially self-reliant
By G. Wayne Clough
Around the Mall
Joint Effort
Evidence surfaces of an unlikely partnership in North America
By Anika Gupta
The Last Page
Requiem for the Redhead
The next great extinction—Carrot Tops
By Patricia McNamee Rosenberg
