Why the world is becoming less free.

The cover story from the June 2011 print edition of The New Republic, available on the web specially for readers of Longform.org.

Has Mexico become a failed state?

One of most popular Libyan figures amongst Western intellectuals and democracy advocates is… Qaddafi’s second son, Saif.

The oracular works of Philip K. Dick.

Reporting from Kuwait on the week of its liberation, a brutal account of the atrocities committed during seven months of Iraqi occupation.

“For the first time since the Civil War, the United States has a political party that is ideologically cohesive, disciplined, and determined to take power, even at the cost of disrupting the political system.”

How health care reform could be repealed.

How a young state rep from Missouri, seemingly guaranteed political greatness, ended up behind bars.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky, oil magnate and once the richest man in Russia, delivers a speech from prison, where he has lived since 2003.

Michael Lewis goes undercover at Columbia.

Why our entire understanding of copyright is due for an overhaul.

Sandinista, reverend, and president of the U.N. General Assembly.

Anesthesiologists, in hugely disproportionate numbers compared to other doctors, are getting high.

After a racial hazing incident, the first black head of South Africa’s University of Free State confronts the myths of the reconciliation era.

Lance Stephenson, the latest in a long line of Coney Island basketball prodigies, carries a burden none of his predecessors did: restoring New York City’s reputation as the hoops capital of the world.