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November 2017
Features
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Journal of the Plague Year
The toll of history’s worst epidemic surpasses all the military deaths in World War I and World War II combined. And it may have begun in the United States
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Viral Stories
Surprisingly few U.S. novelists touched by the 1918 pandemic wrote about it. But flu lit appears more popular today than ever
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The Birth of a Killer
Hundreds there have already died of a new bird flu, putting world health authorities on high alert
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How to Stop a Lethal Virus
With tens of millions of lives at stake, medical researchers are racing to create a revolutionary flu vaccine before the next devastating epidemic
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Bear Essential
A unique North American sanctuary lets a few lucky observers see the besieged grizzly in its wildest state
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Theater of War
Do ancient Greek tragedies have the power to heal 21st-century traumas? A young American director raises the curtain on a daring new experiment
Departments
Discussion
Reader responses to our October issue
A Winter’s Tale
A deep dive into an obscure archive reveals the ironic history of Mar-a-Lago
A Charles Brown Christmas
Good grief! The co-author of a classic holiday song still can’t catch a break
Gettysburg Redux
New work by an acclaimed American artist grapples with the mythology of Civil War heroism
Bold Stroke
President Grant’s signature on the 15th Amendment enshrined his vision of a post-Civil War America
Hollywood’s Secret Weapon
A new documentary, Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story, unearths the movie star’s World War II invention, an ingenious forerunner of high-tech communications. Director Alexandra Dean loops us in.
Ballad of the Last Porpoise
A fascinating mammal is heading for oblivion, the victim of a ravenous black market for a dubious remedy
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