CURRENT ISSUE

January 2014

Features

Our intrepid reporter heads back to the Mississippi Delta in search of his favorite food—and the title of tamale-eating champ

W. Hodding Carter

Take an exclusive backstage tour of the National Zoo and meet Bao Bao, the newest giant panda star

On a wild hike inspired by famed evolutionist Richard Dawkins, every step promises a strange encounter with the origins of species

An amazing abundance of fossils in a bygone lake in Germany hints at the debt humans owe to animals that died out 48 million years ago

As Allied Forces fought the Nazis for control of Europe, an unlikely unit of American and British art experts waged a shadow campaign

A rare White House card from 1963 evokes one of the nation’s darkest holiday seasons

When jihadists overran Timbuktu last year, residents mounted a secret operation to evacuate the town’s irreplaceable medieval manuscripts

From the Editor

Letters to the Editor

The outside of the museum is almost done, but it’s the content inside that is raising concerns