CURRENT ISSUE
July/August 2016
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Features
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Blood Sport
A 2,000-year-old gladiator school brings the men who fought in Roman Empire arenas back to life
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The Fantastic Mr. Dahl
The British author’s world—antic, subversive, wildly inventive and monstrously humane—returns to the screen in Steven Spielberg’s The BFG
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Battle Scars
A bold new history of the epic Battle of the Somme—and the pointless deaths of thousands of American doughboys afterward
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American Exiles
A series of three photo essays explores how America has treated its own people in times of crisis
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Two Nations
For more than a century the U.S. government took Native children from their families to attend western schools, with devastating effects still felt today
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The Drowning
A big picture view of the first place in America losing its battle against climate change
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Antebellum Africa
The world created by former slaves in Liberia was a cruel paradox for more than 150 years. Now it’s finally fading into history
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Lost in Transylvania
Baron Franz Nopcsa was a pioneering dinosaur expert and geologist—and a spy. Then history forgot him. Now the amazing life and tragic demise of a rogue aristocrat is ready to be rediscovered
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Anatomy of a Cure
A half century ago, a young doctor took on a deadly form of cancer—and the scientific establishment. What happened next was one of the greatest medical miracles in U.S. history
Departments
Discussion
Reader responses to our June issue
High School Confidential
Those original teenage frenemies, Betty and Veronica, are now the real stars of Riverdale
How Data Won the West
Early infographics saved soldiers’ lives, debunked myths about slavery and helped Americans settle the frontier
A Fanatic Heart
Celebrated for her novels about love, Edna O’Brien might finally win a Nobel Prize for something much darker
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