Harper's Magazine

In our August issue: Andrew Cockburn on the future of the Democratic Party; Michael W. Clune on AI facial recognition; Mary Childs on the U.S. Treasury market; a memoir from Souvankham Thammavongsa; Katie Kitamura on Yuko Tsushima; and fiction by Amie Barrodale.…

“Beiming felt in a bit of a daze as he thought, The Jade Cloud Temple, where I spent the night, had such beautiful carved beams and painted rafters. How is it that after sleeping for just one night I’ve awoken to find that it has changed so drastically?” harpers.org/archive/2025/0…

“When I looked back at the window, there was no sign of the woman’s hair at all. My stomach dropped a little, and I walked slowly to the edge of the kitchen, hoping she hadn’t fallen.” From a story by Christopher Urban in @RaritanQR. harpers.org/archive/2025/0…

“This swift and near-total capitulation to political depravity is for many people outside the United States an extraordinary sight.” Pankaj Mishra on the moral failings of America’s intelligentsia. harpers.org/archive/2025/0…

“The large language models that programmers train to identify faces are black boxes. Even the engineers don’t know how or in what form your face appears to the system.” Michael W. Clune on the puzzle of AI facial recognition. harpers.org/archive/2025/0…

“Techno-thrillers are the rose-colored glasses through which the national-security state sees itself.” Dan Piepenbring on Simon Ball’s Death to Order from @yalepress. harpers.org/archive/2025/0…

true empowerment is the "feeling of competence in the face of very complex systems" and a greater capacity to respond to them

“‘Does this seem safe to you?’ he said. ‘Not really.’ I lowered myself into the hole, following the shrine keeper, who led us down a winding maze of narrow passages, lit by only his headlamp.” New fiction from Amie Barrodale. harpers.org/archive/2025/0…

“Being liberal is like being Episcopalian: once you are confirmed, you may count yourself a communicant for life. You don’t have to practice.” From “Who Needs the Democrats?,” by John Kenneth Galbraith from July 1970. harpers.org/archive/2025/0…

“I did not want my mother. There had been no plans made to have her, no balloons to call attention to the occasion. She was already here before me, fully formed, and on her own, talking in full sentences.” —Souvankham Thammavongsa harpers.org/archive/2025/0…

“The truth was that in those premillennial days, so concerned had everyone been to ward off a fake crisis that several real ones had been left to fester.” Leigh Claire La Berge (@marxforcats) in Fake Work, which was published in June by Haymarket Books. harpers.org/archive/2025/0…

The novel may open with insects, but its interest in ecology exists alongside, and sometimes is obliged to negotiate, its prevailing interest in the human. @katiekitamura on Yuko Tsushima. harpers.org/archive/2025/0…

In the absence of an audit of the 2024 defeat a concensus has emerged that the fault lies entirely with Biden and his clique for having selfishly insisted on running despite his evident senility. That explanation has the merit of letting everyone else off the hook; but the grim…

“I am Sonny Corleone I am disabled I am a woman seeking control of her body” From public statements made by Andrew Cuomo since 2000. harpers.org/archive/2025/0…

“I had this overwhelming sense that there is a God, and he was really pissed at me for my insolent attitude. I expected to be struck dead at any moment, but I decided to keep going.” Randall Sullivan in conversation with Finn Cohen. harpers.org/archive/2025/0…

“As a borrower, the United States has been seen as risk-free. That confidence itself confers a benefit, in which rates are fantastically low for “risk-free” borrowers like us. On trillions of debt, those savings quickly become real money.” —@mdc harpers.org/archive/2025/0…

“The nation now has what can rightly be called an ‘asymmetric’ presidency, one in which Republicans and Democrats adopt fundamentally different orientations to power.” —William G. Howell and Terry M. Moe harpers.org/archive/2025/0…

“A bat flew silently into the strange bedroom. I crawled in after it. The rock under my hands was scratchy and dry. The ceiling got lower, and I had to lie on my stomach and drag myself.” New fiction from Amie Barrodale. harpers.org/archive/2025/0…

“It’s now taken for granted that dictatorships and democracies alike will engage in the decidedly jackbooted practice of extrajudicial murder.” Dan Piepenbring on Simon Ball’s Death to Order from @yalepress. harpers.org/archive/2025/0…

“Los Angeles is good for feeling ugly but sort of remote about it, as if your ugliness were a phenomenon happening to somebody else.” —@mayabinyam harpers.org/archive/2025/0…

Michael Clune, author of WHITE OUT and the forthcoming debut novel PAN (on sale July 22) writes for @Harpers on AI's facial recognition and how surveillance relates to interior life. harpers.org/archive/2025/0…