Claims Denied
Timeless stories from our 174-year archive handpicked to add context to the news of the day.
United We Care
[ M A R C H • 2 0 2 3 ]
“The truth is that Americans would be a great deal more free if they were liberated from the predations of a medical system that has become a parasite on the social body, extracting wealth and energy that could otherwise be directed toward human flourishing. It is time to tear it down and build something new in place of fear.”
Read “The Social Body” by Hari Kunzru
[ J U L Y • 2 0 1 0 ]
“When even the privileged feel their access to care is so vulnerable, it becomes hard to argue that the system is working for anyone.”
Read “How the Other Half Heals” by Teri Reynolds
[ F E B R U A R Y • 2 0 0 9 ]
“Anyone who has spent any time fighting for the health of the disembodied entity known as a corporation knows that disembodiment is itself a primary advantage.”
Read “Sick in the Head” by Luke Mitchell
[ O C T O B E R • 1 9 6 0 ]
“Conceivably in the years ahead the doctors practicing in group prepayment plans or on a salary will no longer be merely intransigent minorities within their county organizations.”
Read “The Politics of Medicine” by Edward T. Chase
[ D E C E M B E R • 1 9 4 9 ]
“The American Medical Association spent the best years of its life defending things as they were, and things as they were weren’t good: too many people were getting to little medical care too late.”
Read “The Dogged Retreat of the Doctors” by Milton Sanford Mayer
South Korea’s Kerfuffle
[ A U G U S T • 2 0 2 4 ]
William T. Vollmann at the DMZ.
Read “Korean Hearts” by William T. Vollmann
[ F E B R U A R Y • 1 9 5 4 ]
On Syngman Rhee.
Read “Syngman Rhee” by Frank Gibney
[ A P R I L • 2 0 0 6 ]
Military thinkers discuss the unthinkable.
[ J U L Y • 2 0 1 3 ]
Uncovering Iran’s coup.
Read “The Tragedy of 1953” by Christopher de Bellaigue
[ J U N E • 2 0 1 5 ]
Ian Buruma on why Thailand keeps turning to military rule.
Read “A Polite Coup” by Ian Buruma
[ M A R C H • 1 9 7 4 ]
Gabriel García Márquez on the Chilean coup d'état of 1973.
Read “The Death of Salvador Allende” by Gabriel García Márquez
Happy Birthday, Willa Cather
[ W E B - O N L Y • A P R I L • 2 0 1 3 ]
Willa Cather’s sole surviving letter to Edith Lewis.
Read “The Lady in Rose-Colored Glow” by Willa Cather
[ J A N U A R Y • 1 9 1 7 ]
“She had every reason to believe, from experience and from example, that to shock the great crowd was the surest way to get its money and to make her name a household word. Nobody ever became a household word by being an artist, surely, and you were not a thoroughly paying proposition until your name meant something on the sidewalk and in the barber-shop.”
Read “A Gold Slipper” by Willa Cather
[ A P R I L • 1 9 0 9 ]
“We had been careful not to mar the freshness of the place, although we often swam out to it on summer evenings and lay on the sand to rest. This was our last watch-fire of the year, and there were reasons why I should remember it better than any of the others.”
Read “The Enchanted Bluff” by Willa Cather
No One Mourns the Wicked
[ J U N E • 2 0 1 8 ]
Walter Kirn brings the house down on QAnon.
Read “The Wizard of Q” by Walter Kirn
[ A U G U S T • 1 9 7 6 ]
Lewis H. Lapham holds space for Jimmy Carter.
Read “The Wizard of Oz” by Lewis H. Lapham
[ F E B R U A R Y • 2 0 0 1 ]
Christopher Hitchens defies Henry Kissinger.
Read “The Case Against Henry Kissinger: Part One” by Christopher Hitchens
[ W E B - O N L Y • N O V E M B E R • 2 0 2 4 ]
Lewis H. Lapham takes Henry Kissinger down.
Read “The Letters of Lewis H. Lapham and Henry A. Kissinger”