Our August 17 issue—the Summer Issue—is online now, with Madeleine Schwartz on les rats de Paris, Andrew O’Hagan on Succession, Sean Wilentz on Timothy McVeigh and the Republicans, Michelle Nijhuis on the great beasts of America, Ed Park on Ágota Kristóf, Ursula Lindsey on the fallout in Beirut, Larry Wolff on Don Giovanni, Adom Getachew on Africa and the world, Laurence Tribe on the Supreme Court, poems by A.E. Stallings and Peter Gizzi, and much more.

Laurence H. Tribe
Constrain the Court—Without Crippling It

Critics of the Supreme Court think it has lost its claim to legitimacy. But proposals for reforming it must strike a balance with preserving its power and independence, which remain essential to our constitutional system.

James Gleick
Nothing to See Here

For centuries the study of optics and the use of invisibility in science fiction have developed side by side, each inspiring the other.

Clare Bucknell
The Uphill Battles of the Porter Sisters

Jane and Maria Porter wrote wildly successful historical novels that were cribbed by Walter Scott, but they never found financial security and only now have recieved their first biography.

Larry Wolff
The Ambivalences of ‘Don Giovanni’

Opera’s most famous libertine, who embodies freedom not only from social and political constraints but from sexuality, religion, and morality itself, has always been a disturbing figure.