Dispatches from the Rap Wars
A sociologist spent 18 months living with gangs in Chicago fighting bitterly violent local turf wars, and simultaneously trying to make it big with rap tracks and on social media.
Where are we now?
The LRB dedicates a vast spread to responses to the UK’s EU referendum result. Contributors look at the issue from all sorts of angles – the greatest value perhaps lies in the interplay between the viewpoints when placed alongside each other.
The Perfect Man
Billy Mitchell is really, really good at Pac-Man – his high score is 3,333,360 – a perfect game. The unusual way his mind works is gently unpicked in this profile.
How E-Commerce Is Transforming Rural China
While Amazon and many of their US based competitors are seeking growth by diversifying beyond retail (movies, music, television), for their counterparts in China there is a huge amount of growth still to be had simply by spreading outside major urban centres. This piece looks at the impact on local communities, by examining the experience of Xia Canjun, a regional manager for JD.com covering the rural community he grew up in, and the CEO’s strategy back at HQ in Beijing.
The endless reign of Rupert Murdoch
A profile of Rupert Murdoch, fittingly epic in length given its subject’s lifetime spent “in the business of speaking power to truth”.
The Heart and the Fist
The journalist that wrote this story covering a political scandal surrounding the right wing, ex-Navy Seal, Governor of Missouri has an unusual angle – she went to the University of Oxford with his wife, and they were friends.
How Wetherspoon’s Conquered Britain
This is the sort of business profile usually reserved for tech unicorns. It turns out that this billion pound company, built by selling a vast volume of cheap pints (and coffees, and curries, and breakfasts), shares many similarities with Silicon Valley disruptors. It starts with a maverick founder and a relentless culture of innovation and competition, leads to the criticism that inevitably comes with scale, and ends up with the mixing of business and politics.
Revealed: The Secret KGB Manual for Recruiting Spies
This three part story examines newly released KGB operational manuals and looks for evidence of their tactics in recruiting foreign targets today, in Russia’s moves in the Middle East, and in their approach to turning Russians worldwide into intelligence assets.
Romain Pizzi is saving endangered animals, one operation at a time
A leading veterinary surgeon, the perfect man if you have “a tiger with gallstones, or a suspiciously sickly beaver”, has been turning his hand to a broad array of endangered animals.
China’s Camel-Milk Mogul
A look at the camel milk industry of China, thriving in a remote northwestern region bordering Kazakhstan, Russia, and Mongolia.