Comebacks
Timeless stories from our 174-year archive handpicked to add context to the news of the day.
Ukraine’s Surprise Counter-Attack
[ J U L Y • 2 0 1 5 ]
On the struggle for national identity in wartime Ukraine.
Read “Fugue State” by Sarah A. Topol
[ J U L Y • 2 0 2 2 ]
Searching for the Ukrainian foreign legion.
Read “Army of Shadows” by Seth Harp
[ N O V E M B E R • 1 9 0 8 ]
An account from the Crimean War of the 1850s: “We still fought, for it seemed as if the Russians would never get tired of charging us, and for our own part we wouldn’t give way…and then the Russians drew off. And we threw ourselves down by our guns, and we gasped and laughed and cheered, and all around us lay the dead and wounded in great heaps, and the cold rain fell on us, and the heavy mist blew slowly across the ridge.”
Read “A Hero of Inkerman” by Robert Shackleton
WHO Says: Monkeypox is Back
[ M A R C H • 1 9 5 1 ]
A viral reckoning, just before the innovation of the first polio vaccines.
Read “Those Virus Diseases” by Dr. Howard A. Howe
[ J U N E • 2 0 2 0 ]
“Viruses and bacteria hijack our minds; they make us act weirdly.”
Read “Sick Sad World” by Elisa Gabbert
[ J U L Y • 2 0 0 4 ]
A doctor’s dismay at the Bush-era collapse of public health.
Read “We Are Not Immune” by Ronald J. Glasser, M.D.
FDA Just Says No to MDMA
[ M A Y • 1 9 9 9 ]
When does legal relief of pain become illegal pursuit of pleasure?
Read “America’s Altered States” by Joshua Wolf Shenk
[ A P R I L • 2 0 1 6 ]
How to win the war on drugs.
Read “Legalize It All” by Dan Baum
[ O C T O B E R • 1 9 9 1 ]
“No, thanks, I’m all-American. I’ll stick to milk.”
Grin and Bear It
[ M A R C H • 1 9 7 6 ]
On those whose bites are, in fact, worse than their barks.
Read “Dog Days in the City” by Lawrence Burns
[ J U N E • 1 9 8 7 ]
A union bargains with its canine unit.
Read “Dog Days at the Commission”
[ A P R I L • 1 9 9 0 ]
A memorial press junket for Junket, former sheepdog of the House Armed Services Committee.
Read “Dog Days on Capitol Hill”