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In this issue: Anne Applebaum on the violence in Sudan, and what happens when America gives up on helping the world—with photography by Pulitzer winner Lynsey Addario. How the rise of Elon Musk was the downfall of NASA. Clint Smith’s reflections on home, 20 years after his family’s New Orleans neighborhood was wrecked by Hurricane Katrina. Chasing John le Carré’s ghost in Corfu in the latest edition of The Atlantic’s Writer’s Way. The Canadian doctors making heartbreaking decisions under the legalization of Medical Assistance in Dying. And a profile of Fred Walecki, the man who sold guitars to the Eagles, Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt, and many more legends of the '60s and '70s.

 

Read these, and more, in the September issue of The Atlantic.

 

Atlantic subscribers enjoy 12 magazine issues every year, featuring some of our deepest reporting, stunning art and photography, and the monthly edition of Caleb's Inferno, the devilishly difficult word puzzle. Get the September issue today, along with unlimited access to all of The Atlantic, when you subscribe, starting at less than $2.50 a week.

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On the Cover

Soldiers with the Sudanese Armed Forces return from the front line in Khartoum.

Soldiers with the Sudanese Armed Forces return from the front line in Khartoum. (Photograph by Lynsey Addario for The Atlantic)

The Most Nihilistic Conflict on Earth

By Anne Applebaum

Sudan’s devastating civil war shows what will replace the liberal order: anarchy and greed.

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Articles

illustration collage containing rockets, satellite, elon musk, bald eagle, etc

Photo-illustration by Fernando Pino*

How NASA Engineered Its Own Decline

By Franklin Foer

The agency once projected America’s loftiest ideals. Then it ceded its ambitions to Elon Musk.

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clothesline outdoor in Corfu

Photographs by Alice Zoo

Chasing le Carréin Corfu

By Honor Jones

If you’re trying to find someone who doesn’t want to be found, you don’t go to the obvious places.

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illustration of a man pushing a wedding ring up a hill

Illustration by Ben Hickey

Why Marriage Survives

By Brad Wilcox

The institution has adapted, and is showing new signs of resilience.

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they found a house, and a neighborhood, destroyed by Hurricane Katrina

When Clint Smith and his family returned to their New Orleans home in October 2005, they found a house, and a neighborhood, destroyed by flooding. (Courtesy of Clint Smith)

Twenty Years After the Storm

By Clint Smith

What home meant before, and after, Hurricane Katrina

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picture of Fred Walecki cleaning a guitar

Peyton Fulford for The Atlantic

My Father, Guitar Guru to the Rock Gods

By Nancy Walecki

When the greatest musicians of the 1970s needed an instrument—or a friend—my dad was there.

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At a hospital in Quebec, a pharmacist prepares the drugs used in euthanasia.

At a hospital in Quebec, a pharmacist prepares the drugs used in euthanasia.

Canada Is Killing Itself

 

By Elaina Plott Calabro

The country gave its citizens the right to die. Doctors are struggling to keep up with demand.

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