The Atlantic

I grew up in a gun-loving town in Alabama. My grandfather’s store sells firearms. But only after I was shot did I begin to understand America’s complicated relationship with guns.

Vanessa Hua, author, A River of Stars Angkor Wat is where my husband proposed to me at dawn, the sky rosy and golden over the spires reflected in the moat. With its stunning bas-reliefs and crumbling temples in eternal battle with banyan trees, the t

John Kaag’s fascinating new book about the German thinker seeks to tether philosophy back to the mess of daily experience.

The laws of other countries have a bearing on America’s own, writes Stephen Breyer—and the highest court in the land needs to take heed.

Editor’s Note: This photo essay is part of a series that attempts to answer the question: Is democracy dying? Whatever the overall state of America’s civic health, political enthusiasms appear to be proliferating—for good and ill. Some of these enth

The Founders designed a government that would resist mob rule. They didn’t anticipate how strong the mob could become.

In 1858, Abraham Lincoln warned that America could not remain “half slave and half free.” Today, the country remains divided by racism—and the threat is as existential as it was before the Civil War.

Polarization. Conspiracy theories. Attacks on the free press. An obsession with loyalty. Recent events in the United States follow a pattern Europeans know all too well.

As participation in civic life has dwindled, so has public faith in the country’s system of government.

The Constitution once united a diverse country under a banner of ideas. But partisanship has turned Americans against one another—and against the principles enshrined in our founding document.

Nicolai Houm’s third novel unspools the mystery of a writer who abandons fiction and winds up alone on the top of a mountain in Norway.