How Progressives Froze the American Dream
The U.S. was once the world’s most geographically mobile society. Now we’re stuck in place—and that’s a very big problem.
March 2025
In This Issue
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Want to Change Your Personality? Have a Baby.
I knew that becoming a parent would change me—but I had no idea how.
The Man in the Midnight-Blue Six-Ply Italian-Milled Wool Suit
A perfect suit, made by an expert tailor out of superlative fabric, would do nothing less than transform me.
A Novelist Who Looks Into the Dark
Ali Smith scrambles plotlines, upends characters, and flouts chronology—while telling propulsively readable stories.
The Moron Factory
A short story
Dispatches
Illustration by Ben Hickey Why the COVID Deniers Won
Lessons from the pandemic and its aftermath
Illustration by Ben Kothe / The Atlantic. Sources: Anna Moneymaker / Getty; Oxford Science Archive / Print Collector / Getty; mikroman6 / Getty. Europe’s Elon Musk Problem
He and other tech oligarchs are making it impossible to conduct free and fair elections anywhere.
Chris Hoare for The Atlantic All the King’s Censors
When bureaucrats ruled over British theater
Ann Telnaes Capitulation Is Contagious
When fear spreads in a society, powerful people who know better are often the first to show their weakness.
Musuk Nolte Shipwrecked in the Amazon
Photographs of the worst drought in the river basin’s recorded history
Culture & Critics
Illustration by Liz Hart. Source: Peacock. Bridget Jones Isn’t a Postfeminist Relic
How the beloved British diarist outlasted her critics
Illustration by Anna Morrison. Source: Archivio GBB / Alamy. When Robert Frost Was Bad
Before he became America’s most famous poet, he wrote some real howlers.
Illustration by Trevor Shin The Modern Voice of War Writing
In All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque reinvented a genre.
Photo-illustration by Paul Spella* Hanif Kureishi’s Relentlessly Revealing Memoir
How a tragic accident helped the author find his rebellious voice again
Departments
The Atlantic The Commons: ‘There Is No One-Size-Fits-All Approach to Reading Instruction’
Readers respond to our December 2024 issue and more.
The Atlantic Caleb's Inferno: March 2025
A devilish crossword puzzle
Poetry
Alamy Stock Photo
