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December 2017

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Features

Ava DuVernay

The Visionary

Her eye for American history puts her in the vanguard. Her passion for justice makes her a hero

Dave Malloy & Rachel Chavkin

Blaze of Glory

Creators of The Great Comet staged the impossible—a rollicking Broadway musical about War and Peace

Gary Steinberg

Rethinking the Brain

A neurosurgeon defied convention to implant living cells inside the brains of stroke victims

Marley Dias

The Teacher

What can we learn from a 12-year-old who’s turning the book world upside down? Everything

John Legend

The All Star

Songwriter, singer, actor, producer, virtual reality maven. John Legend is America’s most versatile artist

Aziz Ansari

Brighter Than Ever

Past winners of the Ingenuity award shine on

Sesame Street & Julia

The Champion

The bravest new character on TV is a Muppet that doesn’t say much. But she speaks volumes about autism

Natalie Batalha

The Explorer

She guided the discovery of thousands of planets that challenge our view of the universe

Jony Ive

iGenius

Jony’s Apple designs are the seeds of the tech revolution that is rapidly changing our lives

“This winter travel is a new and bold venture,” Scott wrote as his men trudged off to Cape Crozier.

Nightmare on the Ice

Everyone knows about Robert Scott’s doomed race to the South Pole in 1911. But on that same expedition three of his men made a trip that was even more daring

Recipe
In Fallujah, ISIS blew up this bridge during its 2016 retreat.

Troubled Water

In the wake of the war against Isis in Iraq, an ominous journey along the Euphrates finds a new crisis lurking in the shallows of the once-mighty river

Departments

Discussion

Reader responses to our November issue

Here’s to You

The Graduate mesmerized America when it opened 50 years ago. Hollywood would never be the same

The Power and the Glory

An extravagant new tribute to the rise of portraiture 600 years ago

The Strange Beauty of the Epic Fail

A new museum of inventions that bombed boldly celebrates the world’s most creative screw-ups

Hits and Misses

The world’s largest archive of product launches schools marketers in the art of pitchmanship

Robot Love

How a fussy but brave “protocol droid” gives the Star Wars franchise an unlikely dash of humanity

Unlocking the Power of the Atom

A new book by David N. Schwartz, The Last Man Who Knew Everything: The Life and Times of Enrico Fermi, Father of the Nuclear Age, examines the scientist whose breakthrough 75 years ago this month changed the world

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