The language of beauty
Feature: Why have buildings gotten so ugly? Samuel Hughes on a status game that’s been playing out in contemporary architecture—and how elite taste may be starting to turn.
Lone and level sands
Feature: How could an unexpected event transform a work of art? Bryan Singer on a secret monument in Southern Lebanon, its tangled politics, and his first film in seven years.
Hollowed-out in Hollywood
Feature: Why is Los Angeles’s entertainment industry in such crisis? Andrew deWaard on the shape-shifting effects of financialization and monopoly.
Coming like a ghost town
Why is production declining in Hollywood? Patrick Adler on the short-term disruptions and long-term trends transforming an industry.
Lost men
Why do boys keep falling further behind girls in school? Ioakim Boutakidis on a half-century, still-elusive global achievement gap.
Divergence
Why are younger men increasingly voting for the populist right and younger women, the environmental left? Rosie Campbell on a new gender divide in the Western world.
American carnivores
Why are people in the United States eating record amounts of meat? Glynn Tonsor on a mysterious outlier trend in the Western world.
French sour
Why does France seem to be falling apart? Marc Weitzmann on immigration, regulation, and the end of a political era.
In theaters now
Why are studios releasing so few original new films? Andrew deWaard on how movie franchises have conquered Hollywood.
