Welcome to the Monkey House
In 1906, Enrico Caruso was arrested for molesting a young woman inside the Monkey House of Central Park Zoo, paving the way for the first celebrity trial of the 20th century.
Great articles, every Saturday.
In 1906, Enrico Caruso was arrested for molesting a young woman inside the Monkey House of Central Park Zoo, paving the way for the first celebrity trial of the 20th century.
David Suisman The Believer Jun 2004 15min Permalink
The story of Charles Goodyear, who dedicated his life to inventing usable rubber yet has little to show for it, aside from his name on the side of a blimp.
Jason Zasky Failure Magazine Sep 2010 10min Permalink
Foreign policy as architecture; how embassies went from lavish social hubs to reinforced strongholds.
William Langewiesche Vanity Fair Nov 2007 20min Permalink
A Holocaust detective story: could a lampshade pulled from the ruins of Katrina really be Buchenwald artifact made of human remains?
Mark Jacobson New York Sep 2010 30min Permalink
Alex Haley interviews the Honorable Elijah Muhammad’s number two - Malcolm X - in a Harlem restaurant.
Alex Haley, Malcolm X Playboy May 1963 35min Permalink
Inside Rebecca West’s vast Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, an eerily timeless travelogue of the Balkans written on the eve of WWI.
Geoff Dyer The Guardian Aug 2006 15min Permalink
In “Operation Mincemeat” a vagrant’s corpse, raided from a London morgue, washed up on a beach in Spain, setting in motion an elaborate piece of espionage that fooled Nazi intelligence. Or did it?
Malcolm Gladwell New Yorker May 2010 20min Permalink
The forgotten life of Eva Tanguay, perhaps America’s first rock star.
Jody Rosen Slate Dec 2009 15min Permalink
Best Article Arts History Music
Vignettes of the residents of South Elliot Place.
Stacy Abramson New York Times Jul 2010 Permalink
In January 1966–the same month In Cold Blood was first published–Truman Capote sat down with George Plimpton to discuss the new art form he liked to call “creative journalism.”
George Plimpton, Truman Capote New York Times Jan 1966 35min Permalink
A interview with David Mitchell, author of the recent The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet and Cloud Atlas, on stretching a fictional universe across multiple novels and centuries of real history.
Wyatt Mason New York Times Jul 2010 Permalink
Through a series of interviews and historical inquiries, Errol Morris dissects Anosognosia, “a condition in which a person who suffers from a disability seems unaware of or denies the existence of his or her disability.”
Errol Morris New York Times Jul 2010 Permalink
An unidentified body found near the beach in Australia in 1948. An unclaimed suitcase. A coded note.
In 1916, a down-on-its-luck traveling circus hung its star elephant.
J. V. Schroeder Blue Ridge Country Feb 2009 10min Permalink
The founding fathers deserve at least some of the blame for the worst presidencies in American history—they created an office that’s vaguely defined and ripe for abuse. Plus: how to fix it.
Garrett Epps The Atlantic Jan 2009 15min Permalink
In 1920, Harvard University officials suspected that some students were gay. So they kicked them all out.
Benoit Denizet-Lewis The Good Men Project Jun 2010 10min Permalink
In the chaotic days before the Berlin Wall fell, the East German secret police shredded 45 million pages. Fifteen years later, a team of computer scientists figured out how to put it all back together.
Andrew Curry Wired Jan 2008 15min Permalink
The inner workings of a surprisingly amiable Holocaust denial conference.
The truck driver who reverse engineered the atomic bomb.
David Samuels New Yorker Dec 2008 40min Permalink
An uneasy friendship forms in colonial Ceylon between the future husband of Virgina Woolf and a socially repulsive police magistrate.
Lev Grossman The Believer May 2010 25min Permalink
Prohibition couldn’t have happened without Wayne B. Wheeler, who foisted temperance on a thirsty nation 90 years ago.
The city of Boston, the Tea Party movement, and the rightful heir to the American Revolution.
Jill Lepore New Yorker Apr 2010 25min Permalink