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Death Throes
Fifty years ago , American support for the death penalty was as low as it has ever been: more Americans opposed it than approved it. Violent crime in the country was low. The number of executions annually was a small fraction of the historical peak in the …
Issue: November-December 2016
Wanderers from Sirius
Dogs do figure mightily in Underdog, the fourth collection of poems by Katrina Roberts ’87. In “Cave Canem,” for example, a meditation on, and reimagining of, the volcanic denouement that doomed Pompeii, the narrator speaks of …my quiet urgings to the …
Issue: January-February 2012
Football: Harvard 56, Princeton 39
This was one for the books. On a perfect football Saturday at the Stadium, Harvard held a 42-16 lead in the second half and seemed to be cruising to its fifth win of the season. Then, within a span of 10 minutes, a furious Princeton rally cut the Crimson …
Lessons from Libya?
In the spring of 2007, this magazine published a brief news item observing that “Lawrence University Professor Michael Porter, perhaps the world’s preeminent corporate strategist, is advising the government of Libya on economic reform,” that the …
Issue: July-August 2011
Jambalaya
Harvest's main dining room. The outdoor terrace can be a pleasant alternative. Photograph courtesy of Harvest Restaurant The landmark Harvest R estaurant, established in 1975 and reopened in 1998 by new management after a financial swoon, is at last in …
Issue: May-June 2002
A Student in Beijing
Thousands of bicycles. Ubiquitous laundry lines. Hard beds and squat toilets. Metal meal tins. White bureaucratic slips of paper with red stamps--all assaulted by dust from the Gobi desert and a coal-induced haze. Many Western students go into culture …
Letting Go of the “Ideal” Classroom
I love the way that patches of wild yellow-rayed goldfields slightly reflect the sunlight of the California coast. The stalks of these wildflowers can reach as high as my waist, and their deep green leaves shoot out from the entire length in fractals. …
The SARS Scare
In a matter of months in early 2003, severe acute respiratory syndrome spread to 29 countries, killing nearly 10 percent of the people it infected. No drug could stop SARS, and the disease propagated wildly through the ranks of healthcare workers. One …
Issue: March-April 2007
The “Messy Experiment”
O n November 20, 1960, scientist Mary Ingraham Bunting unveiled her vision for the Radcliffe Institute for Independent Study. Newly appointed as Radcliffe’s president, she made her announcement just weeks after the country had elected John F. Kennedy ’40, …
Issue: May-June 2020
“Drip, Drip, Drip”
Erwin Cai ’20 knew he should make a defensive move. The problem was execution. A sabre fencer since age eight, he predicted that his opponent was about to attack. If he could parry and riposte—block the Yale captain’s attack and go in for his own—he …
Issue: May-June 2020
Friends of Harvard Magazine
The Friends of Harvard Magazine group was established to demonstrate Harvard Magazine' s appreciation for donors who make an especially generous contribution of $100 or more. To recognize and strengthen that bond, Harvard Magazine holds special events …
President Bacow‘s Alumni Day Speech
(Speech published as prepared for delivery) Thank you, Vanessa [Liu], for that generous introduction—and for your steadfast leadership of the Harvard Alumni Association. We appreciate all you have done this year to keep our community as strong as …
Talk, Part I: On Service to Country
America is fighting two wars. Related issues arose twice during the formal Commencement-week activities. President Drew Faust, addressing her first Reserve Officers’ Training Corps commissioning ceremony on June 4, delivered a nuanced, historical analysis …
Issue: July-August 2008
An Argument for Music
The first movement of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto ended, and Carnegie Hall erupted in applause. Joshua Bell, whose dazzling solos and severe good looks had fired the crowd, pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped it theatrically across his brow. …
Issue: July-August 2008
Cruel and Unjust
For a nation “conceived in Liberty,” as Abraham Lincoln emphasized with a capital L in hand-writing his Gettysburg Address, it should be shocking that the United States has locked up almost a quarter of the prisoners in the world despite having less than …
Issue: March-April 2025