Reunion or Revenge
Reunion or Revenge
Timeless stories from our 174-year archive handpicked to add context to the news of the day.
The GOP on the Brink
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Read Lauren Oyler’s cover story in our latest issue, then peruse the Harper’s archive for more on the Republican party’s identity crisis.
Read “Revenge Plot” by Lauren Oyler
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On the 1976 Republican National Convention and the “quarrel over the soul of this party we had come to think of as endemically diseased by the bad blood of its amateurs.”
Read “Born-Again Republicans” by Murray Kempton
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Francine Prose on reality TV and Republicanism: “The ethics (if one can call them that) and the ideals that permeate these programs at once reflect and reinforce the basest, most mindless and ruthless aspects of the current political zeitgeist.”
Read “Voting Democracy off the Island” by Francine Prose
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Will the movement outlive the man?
Read “Trumpism After Trump” by Thomas Meaney
Basta: Italy Bans Surrogacy Abroad
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An analysis of the surrogacy agreement in the Baby M case.
Read “Dilemma in Swaddling Clothes” by Judith Levine
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One couple’s anguished attempt to conceive.
Read “Missing Children” by Bob Shacochis
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Lena Dunham on letting go of motherhood.
Read “False Labor” by Lena Dunham
City of Angels? Archdiocese of LA to Pay $880 Million in Sex Abuse Settlement
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“Everybody does it.” From explanations given by priests as to why sexual abuse was acceptable.
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“Systemic sexual abuse.” From things for which Roman Catholic popes have apologized.
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“You are shot by the mother of a girl who accused you of ignoring her claim that she was sexually harassed by a priest in the diocese. Lose twenty influence points.” From cards used in the board game Vatican: Unlock the Secrets of How Men Become Pope.
Read “God Does Play Dice” by Stephen Haliczer
Candles in the Wind
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Lewis H. Lapham on celebrity worship and the gilded facade of fame: “Their presence comforts the populace with the proof of immortality, prompting people to say to one another that if Kenny Rogers were on this subway, then no thug would dare pull a knife, that if Madonna were on this plane, not even God would dare strike it from the sky.”
Read “Nymphs and Satyrs” by Lewis H. Lapham
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“’Fame,’ sings David Bowie, who should know, ‘what you get is no tomorrow.’ …Fame standardizes the goals and the measure of achievement. The result is a frenzied yet monotonous society in which the names of the actors always change, but the show remains the same.”
Read “Notes on Fame” by John Lahr
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On Michael Jackson.
Read “Lost Boy” by Margo Jefferson