The Real Nature of Thomas Edison’s Genius
A piece suggesting Edison’s great skill was not so much in invention as in optimisation and a structured approach to research and development.
Jon Krakauer on the Incredible Career of Mountaineer Fred Beckey
This profile of one of the world’s great climbers, who has since died, is really a study of a lifetime’s obsessive dedication to a single aim.
Nokia’s collapse turned a sleepy town in Finland into an internet wonderland
A look at the town of Oulu in Finland, a boomtown at the time of Nokia’s zenith, but arguably all the better since the company’s fortunes faded from its position as the preeminent mobile telecommunications company.
The Wild Ones
The story of a groundbreaking research expedition down the Colorado River in 1938, undertaken by two female botanists out to prove people wrong. It’s a story at once personal and symbolic, with a narrative arc spanning over half a century.
A Trip to the Pro-Russian Pseudo-State of Luhansk
A journalist is granted rare access to Luhansk, a self-proclaimed statelet in Eastern Ukraine, an unrecognised territory with “1.5 million residents, 17 ministries and a Soviet star in its coat of arms” that has “17 ministries but no cash machines”.