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Steven Seagal's Fight for Mother Russia
The aging action star’s second wind abroad: political maneuvering, many guns and, most importantly, a market for his B movies.
The Most Popular Articles of the Week
The collapse of Motorola, the Italian scientists held criminally responsible for an earthquake and the bumpy rise of Chevy Chase during SNL's first season — the week's top stories on Longform.
The BBC Report
A 9-part series on the past, present and future of the BBC.
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What Can the Origins of the BBC Tell Us About Its Future?
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The BBC: There to Inform, Educate, Provoke and Enrage?
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From David Kelly to Jimmy Savile, How Does the BBC Deal with a Crisis?
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The Big Beasts Who Shaped the BBC
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The BBC Informs, Educates and Entertains – But in What Order?
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The BBC: How the Voice of an Empire Became Part of an Evolving World
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BBC’s Long Struggle to Present the Facts Without Fear or Favour
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BBC Looks Beyond the Walled Garden in a Changing Media World
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The Future of the BBC: You Either Believe in It or You Don't
The Longform Guide to Florida
A trip to Disney, the origins of Gatorade, the carny capital of America and how Miami ends — ten of our favorite articles about Florida.
Club Meds
A trip to The Villages, a booming retiremement community outside Orlando, where the golf is free, casual sex is everywhere, and there is no cemetery.
The Boy with Half a Brain
To save William Buttars’s life, his parents had to risk it.
Fiction Pick of the Week: "Spew"
A Profile Auditor goes sniffing after anomalies in the consumption habits and personal data of an unsuspecting hotel clerk.
For a daily short story recommendation from our editors, try Longform Fiction or follow @longformfiction on Twitter.
Delta Nights
On Lucinda Williams and her “love affair with loss.”
A Sordid But Instructive Interval At Soldier of Fortune Magazine
A personal history of Soldier of Fortune magazine and the mercenary-wannabes who read and wrote it.
Acting French
On learning a new language, a new culture, and why “it must never be concluded that an urge toward the cosmopolitan, toward true education, will make people stop hitting you.”
Hollywood's Big-Money YouTube Hit Factory
Established media companies used to sue YouTube. Now they’re betting on it.
I Was the Worst High School Quarterback Ever
The author examines his terrible football career.
The Dawn of the Post-Clinic Abortion
Almost 40 percent of the world’s population lives in countries with limits on abortion. Activists like Rebecca Gompert imagine a future where those limits are meaningless because most abortions happen at home.
Stranger in the Village
On being black in an all-white Swiss village.
Branding Guyana
The rise and fall of travel writing.
What Happened to Motorola
The anatomy of a collapse.
Zach Baron is a staff writer for GQ.
“People love to put celebrity stuff or culture stuff lower on the hierarchy than, say, a serial killer story. I think they're all the same story. If you crack the human, you crack the human.”
Thanks to TinyLetter and Squarespace for sponsoring this week’s episode.
Fear and Self-Loathing in Las Vegas
Retracing Hunter S. Thompson’s steps 40 years later.
Intelligence Gap
How a Chinese national, with the help of a suspected spy, disappeared with laptops and hard drives that may have contained sensitive information from the Arizona Counter Terrorism Information Center.
On Rape
On the narrative of sexual coercion.
The Right Thing to Do vs. The State of Florida
After Devaughn Darling died during a workout with the Florida State football team, his family was awarded a payout of $2 million. That was 13 years ago. Only $200,000 has come.
Gone Like the Wind
After one of the most decisive wins in Kentucky Derby history, Barbaro broke his leg at the Preakness, ending a promising career and beginning a herculean effort to save his life.
The Matter of Time
Spun-off from Time Warner and saddled with $1.3 billion in debt as a parting gift, the once-mighty Time Inc needs to reinvent itself. Fast.
The Aftershocks
How seven Italian scientists came to be convicted of manslaughter following a catastrophic quake.
The Soft-Kill Solution
The future (and past) of non-lethal weaponry deployed against civilian populations.
