“Professional boxing is the only major American sport whose primary, and often murderous, energies are not coyly deflected by such artifacts as balls and pucks.”

Rampant rape and murder in the Brazilian slums.

“Violence, being instrumental by nature, is rational to the extent that it is effective in reaching the end which must justify it.”

What the writer’s newly revealed letters mean for her long-debated legacy.

“A curious thing about the United States is that anticommunism has always been far louder and more potent than communism.”

Three boys falsely accused of murder, and what the twenty-year saga says about all of us.

A history of how Tuareg separatists, jihadists seeking a “desert caliphate,” cigarette smugglers, and narcotraffickers have turned Northern Mali into “the globe’s most significant terrorist threat.”

On commercial diving, the third most deadly profession.

On joy, pleasure and Ecstacy.

A consideration of Chris Ware.

Behind the tabloid story of the “murder orphan” in Queens.

Debates surrounding physician-assisted dying in the U.S.

How Wall Street thoroughly dominated Obama’s economic policy.

A Supreme Court Justice revisits a rape trial from the 1950s.

A literary exploration of Obama’s voice.

The story of a young man on the run in the slum he dreams of escaping.

A lyrical meditation on morning in the city, from the newly published Berlin Stories collection.

"A giantess like this doesn’t dress so quickly; but each of her beautiful, huge motions is fragrant and steams and pounds and peals. "

Reviewing Newt Gingrich as historian and intellectual.

On Patti Smith.

It was easy for lazy journalists to caricature her as a stringbean who looked like Keith Richards, emitted Dylanish word salads, and dropped names—a high-concept tribute act of some sort, very wet behind the ears. But then her first album, Horses, came out in November 1975, and silenced most of the scoffers.

An essay drawn from the introduction of Davidson’s iconic book Subway, first published in 1986:

To prepare myself for the subway, I started a crash diet, a military fitness exercise program, and early every morning I jogged in the park. I knew I would need to train like an athlete to be physically able to carry my heavy camera equipment around in the subway for hours every day. Also, I thought that if anything was going to happen to me down there I wanted to be in good shape, or at least to believe that I was. Each morning I carefully packed my cameras, lenses, strobe light, filters, and accessories in a small, canvas camera bag. In my green safari jacket with its large pockets, I placed my police and subway passes, a few rolls of film, a subway map, a notebook, and a small, white, gold-trimmed wedding album containing pictures of people I’d already photographed in the subway. In my pants pocket I carried quarters for the people in the subway asking for money, change for the phone, and several tokens. I also carried a key case with additional identification and a few dollars tucked inside, a whistle, and a small Swiss Army knife that gave me a little added confidence. I had a clean handkerchief and a few Band-Aids in case I found myself bleeding.

An investigation into the events surrounding Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s May 2011 arrest for sexual assault.

On Michael Lewis and the global financial crisis.

Previously: The Michael Lewis World Tour of Economic Collapse

How the contradiction-rich “country the size of Connecticut” that birthed Al-Jazeera has played an integral and surprising role in the revolutions of the Arab Spring.

How LA-style gang life migrated to the slums of San Salvador.

On Terri Schiavo, “persistent vegetative state,” and life or death decisions:

Imagine it. You are in your early twenties. You are watching a movie, say on Lifetime, in which someone has a feeding tube. You pick up the empty chip bowl. “No tubes for me,” you say as you get up to fill it. What are the chances you have given this even a passing thought?