The Villain
The left hates him. The right hates him even more. But Ben Bernanke saved the economy—and has navigated masterfully through the most trying of times.
April 2012
In This Issue
How Ben Bernanke saved the economy, Rahm Emanuel's big plans, the triumph of HBO's Game of Thrones, Philip Roth's not-quite-autobiographical fiction, and more
Features
Meet the New Boss
Tattered finances, broken schools, rampant crime—can Rahm Emanuel make Chicago work?
The Man Who Broke Atlantic City
Over the course of five months, Don Johnson won $15 million from three different casinos, devastating their monthly revenues. Here’s how he did it.
What Isn’t for Sale?
Market thinking so permeates our lives that we barely notice it anymore. A leading philosopher sums up the hidden costs of a price-tag society.
How We Spend
And what that tells us about the economy
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Don Juan Moore/Associated Press Moneyballer
Why did Harrison Barnes stay in college when he could have played pro? It’s all about building his brand.
Gerald Herbert/Associated Press School, Crossing
How do you move a 3-million-pound building across New Orleans? Carefully.
Rahat Dar/EPA/Corbis The Playboy
A former cricket star may become Pakistan’s next ruler.
Wesley Bedrosian The Royal Me
How Australians’ disdain for authority has led to an epidemic of secession
Vahid Salemi / AP The Peaks of Persia
Sharing the rope on a rare expedition in the mountains of Iran
Graham Roumieu The Secret Ingredient
Liquor companies love to claim they use closely guarded, centuries-old recipes. Usually it’s just marketing.
Bryan Christie The Glove That Would Change the Game
The new science of fielding
Columns
Annie Griffiths Belt/Corbis Europe’s Real Crisis
The Continent’s problems are as much demographic as financial. And they won’t go away anytime soon.
Jesse Lenz The Enchanted State
HBO’s Game of Thrones, based on the novels by George R. R. Martin, represents a triumph of storytelling.
Books
Michael Rosenfeld/Getty Night Owls
How nightlife changed Western culture, plus why New Zealand is better than the U.S.
Reuters Roth v. Roth v. Roth
The complexities and conundrums of reading Philip Roth’s work as autobiography
Punit Paranjpe/Corbis Cover to Cover
Katherine Boo’s unsparing portrait of slum life in Mumbai; two Agatha Christie memoirs; a modern Victorian novel set at the races; and more
Editor's Note
Paul Sancya/Associated Press Creative Destruction
The modern Republican Party has braided together a reverence for tradition with a devotion to free markets. But those two values are inexorably in conflict.
Letters & more
Letters to the editor
Responses and reverberations
Gallery
Poetry
Advice
Nishant Choksi What’s Your Problem?
Never pay for marijuana, and other advice
