December 2018
Smithsonian magazine delivers trusted and incisive reporting on history, science, nature, culture and travel.
Features
Unlocking the Solar System
A visionary NASA mission to Jupiter takes on a giant mystery to understand our own planet’s origins
Fighting for Their Lives
After the violence at a Florida high school, brave students showed us how to find meaning in tragedy
Learning to Speak Latino
An uproariously inventive new one-man show puts the story of a neglected culture center stage
Seeing the Light
A wife-and-husband research team cracks the code on gene therapy with a new treatment for blindness
The Soul of the New Machine
A musical virtuoso leaves her old persona behind and emerges as America’s most revolutionary artist
Shhhhh Genius at Work
An actor turned director creates a genre-busting horror movie with a terrifying twist—silence
Poetry to the People
Our most intrepid poet travels cross-country to ignite the American imagination, for better and for verse
The New Women Warriors
How the leaders of a farmworkers’ alliance reached across a cultural divide to spark the new Time’s Up initiative
Takin' It to the Streets
Hop in. Your driverless car is already here, thanks to the visionary engineers behind a bold experiment
The Costs of the Confederacy
In the last decade alone, American taxpayers have spent at least $40 million on Confederate monuments and groups that distort U.S. history and perpetuate racist ideology
The Salvation of Atlanta
One of the Civil War's greatest battles was fought again and again on a spectacular canvas nearly 400 feet long. After more than a century of efforts to repaint history, the original truth is finally being unveiled
Departments
Discussion
Readers respond to our November 2018 Issue
Hitting the Panic Buttons
Long before parents freaked over Fortnite, they flipped out over another newfangled game
Street Wise
Jazz, race and an unlikely friendship inspire Green Book, a new movie about navigating Jim Crow America
Wright and Wrong
A new book advances a controversial theory about the singular contribution that went into the brothers’ first flight
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