Alternatives
Timeless stories from our 175-year archive handpicked to add context to the news of the day.
Alternative for Germany?
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“As anger against migrants has risen, so have the fortunes of the Alternative for Germany (AfD).”
Read “Echt Deutsch” by Yascha Mounk
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“The Communists were gone, but a sour, aggrieved resentment lingered, shaping a right-wing turn.”
Read “Two Germanys” by Sigrid MacRae
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An account of contemporary German history—told in diary entries.
Read an excerpt from Christa Wolf’s book One Day a Year
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“In other countries when there is an election you vote whether you want one candidate or another, but in Germany Hitler made himself President and it was a law, and then people voted whether they liked the law or not.”
Read “Good-by to Germany” by Dorothy Thompson
Thin ICE
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“As for me with my paucity of knowledge, what I can best do is keep relaying the migrants’ stories, one after the other.”
Read “Just Keep Going North” by William T. Vollmann
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On being a DACA enrollee in Trump's America.
Read “Dream On” by Aviva Stahl
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Melissa del Bosque investigates how border agents, like US Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, are expanding their reach into the country’s interior.
Dispatches from Russia’s War in Ukraine
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How the White House misled Ukraine.
Read “Operation Overshare” by James Harkin
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“FEBRUARY 24: I woke up early to see eight unanswered calls on my phone. It was my parents and some friends.”
Read an excerpt from Yevgenia Belorusets’s diary entries “Brave and Rational”
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A selection from a book on children’s rights issued to first graders in St. Petersburg, Russia. The book was paid for by President Vladimir Putin's Unity Party.
Read “Lessons of the Revolution,” translated from the Russian by Marina Makanova
Comedic Timing: SNL50
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“[Lorne] Michaels, for his part, has long been ambivalent about playing to liberal consensus.”
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“ASSIGNMENT: write the opening monologue for Jesus Christ's appearance on Saturday Night Live as guest host.”
Read “Saturday Night Live monologue” by Ron Suskind
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Dave Madden on a week of stand-up in Hollywood’s toughest room.
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“Comedy is the biggest con of all — getting paid to make people laugh.”
Read “You Had to Be There” by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc