Checkmate
Timeless stories from our 174-year archive handpicked to add context to the news of the day.
Assad’s Fall
[ J U L Y • 2 0 2 4 ]
Among the ruins of Aleppo.
Read “There Was and There Was Not” by Pauls Toutonghi
[ A U G U S T • 2 0 2 0 ]
The search for Syrian war criminals in Europe.
Read “In Plain Sight” by Annie Hylton
[ J A N U A R Y • 2 0 1 9 ]
The story of a Kurdish sniper.
[ F E B R U A R Y • 2 0 1 6 ]
Illustrating the Syrian refugee crisis.
Read “Escaping Wars and Waves” with drawings by Olivier Kugler
[ A U G U S T • 2 0 1 2 ]
Meeting the rebel government of an embattled country.
Read “Welcome to Free Syria” by Anand Gopal
One Man’s Plan?
[ A P R I L • 2 0 1 8 ]
“‘Pain is a terrorist, and it’s terrorizing your body. It’s become an antenna for your grief.’” Brian Goldstone chronicles chronic pain’s unique devastation.
Read “The Pain Refugees” by Brian Goldstone
[ F E B R U A R Y • 2 0 0 4 ]
Don DeLillo on Lee Harvey Oswald.
Read “The American Absurd” by Don DeLillo
[ F E B R U A R Y • 2 0 1 4 ]
Thomas Frank on the history of the so-called “American Fact-Finding Committee” on November 22, 1963.
Read “Tears for Fears” by Thomas Frank
[ N O V E M B E R • 1 9 6 4 ]
“The idea of the paranoid style as a force in politics would have little contemporary relevance or historical value if it were applied only to men with profoundly disturbed minds. It is the use of paranoid modes of expression by more or less normal people that makes the phenomenon significant.”
Read “The Paranoid Style in American Politics” by Richard Hofstadter
[ A U G U S T • 2 0 1 0 ]
Dan Baum, gunslinger.
Read “Happiness is a Worn Gun” by Dan Baum
[ M A Y • 1 9 4 3 ]
Memoirs of a student saboteur.
Read “How We Learned to Kill Traitors” by Loo Pin-Fei
Verdicts
[ O C T O B E R • 2 0 2 0 ]
Life in a cop-free zone.
Read “The Sanctuary” by Wes Enzinna
[ J U L Y • 2 0 1 8 ]
The fall of New York and the urban crisis of affluence.
Read “The Death of a Once Great City” by Kevin Baker
[ W E B - O N L Y • S E P T E M B E R • 2 0 1 6 ]
The art of protest.
Read “Vote, Sing, Breathe” by Alison Kinney
The Youngest King of Chess
[ J A N U A R Y • 1 9 6 2 ]
On Bobby Fischer.
Read “Portrait of a Genius as a Young Chess Master” by Ralph Ginzburg
[ M A R C H • 2 0 2 3 ]
On how online chess reshapes the game of kings.
Read “Knights-Errant” by Jacob Sweet
[ M A Y • 1 8 6 7 ]
“My little love, do you remember/Ere we were grown so sadly wise/Those evenings in the bleak December/Curtained warm from the snowy weather/When you and I played chess together/Check-mated by each other’s eyes?”
Read “The Impending Check-Mate”