Smithsonian Magazine: November 2012
Features
Mr. Lincoln Goes to Hollywood
Steven Spielberg, Doris Kearns Goodwin and Tony Kushner tell Roy Blount Jr. what it takes to wrestle an epic presidency into a feature film
By Roy Blount Jr.
Lights! Camera! Lincoln!
The 16th president has been a Hollywood star and box office attraction since 1930
By Jesse Rhodes
Primal Instinct
The only place in the world to get close to wild western lowland gorillas is deep in a Central African Republic forest. Photographers Anup Shah and Fiona Rogers made the tortuous journey to bond with our increasingly threatened cousins
By Abigail Tucker
Assassination Foiled
100 years ago, Teddy Roosevelt was saved from a bullet by 50 pieces of paper
By Patricia O'Toole
Seoul of a New Machine
Welcome to the city of the future. South Korea's capital has risen from third-world backwater into a tech-savvy mecca of superstar artists and architects
By Tom Downey
The Gospel According to King
Harvard's Karen King sparked intense debate with her discovery of a 1,600-year-old papyrus fragment referring to Jesus' "wife." The only reporter on the scene in Rome when the divinity scholar made the shocking announcement was Ariel Sabar. Here's his exclusive report
By Ariel Sabar
Breaking Point
Environmental politics take a dramatic turn in Malibu when surfers, celebrities and scientists clash over a plan to clean up an iconic American playground
By Claire Martin
The Hunt for Ebola
In Uganda, a CDC team races to find the origins of a deadly virus
By Joshua Hammer
The Last Renaissance Man
With his erudite Quarterly, the legendary Harper’s editor aims for an antidote to digital age ignorance
By Ron Rosenbaum
Departments
From the Castle
From the Castle
The Smithsonian’s secretary introduces the Institution’s new campaign to highlight its best and most innovative work
By G. Wayne Clough, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution
Slaves to Fashion
Photographer Zed Nelson traveled the world documenting how body improvement has practically become a new religion
By Joseph Stromberg
In Living Color
The white marble paragons we revere were originally dressed in eye-popping pigments
By Jamie Katz
Hard-Wired for Art
Brain-imaging techniques are mapping the locations of our aesthetic response.
By Abigail Tucker
Around the Mall
Face Time
A new exhibit unmasks the titans of modern American poetry
By Joseph Stromberg
Around the Mall
A Pair of Monumental Sculptures Makes Its Way to American Indian Museum
Artist Rick Bartow's pair of sculptures, "We Were Always Here," will sit at the museum's entrance
By Leah Binkovitz
Around the Mall
Did the Pilgrims Really Land on Plymouth Rock?
Your questions answered by our experts
By Smithsonian Magazine
Books
Books
Why should we consider the fork? And a new biography of the ill-fated George Armstrong Custer
By Chloe Schama
