Explore all the content from our Decade in Review here—we’ve placed these exemplary articles in front of our paywall for a limited time so readers can now enjoy them for free!
What a difference a decade makes. For over 154 years, The Nation has seen political, economic, and cultural upheaval in America, but the ferocious drumbeat of the 2010s shaped a new media landscape: One defined by a 24/7 news cycle, amplified and accelerated by social media, and compounded by the financial challenges facing a free press.
Hindsight being 20/20, there are common threads we can trace to this current cultural and political moment. The dual and growing forces of monopoly and inequality (which we shone a critical light on as far back as 2013 with our special issue, “Bloomberg’s Gilded City”) intensified over the decade. But so too did public support in favor of the issues and ideals our editors and readers have long held to be important: questions of racial justice and feminism, a fair economy that works for all, and enduring civil liberties, environmental sustainability, and peace and nuclear disarmament.
Looking back over the past 10 years, it’s remarkable how many extraordinary contributions we’ve published—far more than we could include on any “Decade in Review” list. From longtime contributor Jonathan Schell’s powerful warning about how in the wake of 9/11, we have summoned up imaginary demons to spare ourselves from facing the all-too-real burdens of our time, to former national affairs correspondent William Greider’s crystal clear analysis of the end of New Deal liberalism, to longtime contributor Stephen F. Cohen’s prescient alert about the dangers of America’s new Cold War with Russia, to groundbreaking investigative journalism, to environmental correspondent Mark Hertsgaard’s pathbreaking articles about a global Green New Deal to bracing cultural commentary, to intelligent political analysis, there’s much to celebrate from our fiercely independent journalism of the past 10 years—and there is also much more work to do in the decade to come, as we continue to fight for a more radical and equitable future.
As I wrote in The Nation’s 150th Anniversary issue, “Change is inevitable, but the one constant in The Nation’s history has been faith—not in political parties or policies, but in what can happen when you tell people the truth. It is this notion that has sustained The Nation since its start: that and the idea that there are always alternatives—in history, in politics, in life—that would make our country and the world a more humane, just, and secure place.”
The list of articles below, while not at all comprehensive, pulls together the threads of some of the best that was in our pages and our pixels—much of it inspiring and prescient, and others, perhaps, less than prophetic. It is my hope that these collected articles give a glimmer of the best of our work, our abiding principles, and our impact seeding ideas that have expanded our national conversation and the terms of the debate. America in 2020 is at an inflection point, and The Nation’s work will continue—as it has in good, not-so-good, and bad times—to offer alternative visions and ideas, and to inform today’s roiling political debates—as we strive to achieve that more perfect union.
—Katrina vanden Heuvel, Editorial Director
Looking back at what Katrina and my colleagues here accomplished over the past decade is both daunting and inspiring. Daunting because it sets the bar extremely high—not just in terms of journalistic impact, but in terms of editorial vision and courage and literary quality. As The Nation’s biographer, I’m well aware of our history, the canonical (and should-be canonical) writers who’ve written for us, and our many decades of fighting for justice and liberation. But it is good to be reminded that despite all the pressures facing independent media, The Nation has consistently managed to keep our voice distinct, our principles clear, and our eyes on the prize. That’s inspiring. And so too is the fact that while we’ve lost some great talents, so many of those who wrote for us at the dawn of the 21st century are still contributors. With such a solid base to build on, I’m excited about finding new voices, new writers, new stories—and new ways to tell those stories—in the years to come.
—D.D. Guttenplan, Editor
(AP Photo/John Minchillo)
2011: The Audacity of Occupy Wall Street, by Richard Kim
Trayvon Martin (AP Photo/HO, Martin Family Photos)
2012: Trayvon Martin: What It’s Like to Be a Problem, by Melissa Harris-Perry
(Illustration by Ryan Inzana)
2014: How Trayvon Martin’s Death Launched a New Generation of Black Activism, by Mychal Denzel Smith
Flossie Ford-Hedrington stands beside her well, which stopped producing water last year.(Sasha Abramsky)
2015: Welcome to Fairmead, California, Where You Have to Walk a Mile for a Sip of Water, by Sasha Abramsky
Katrina vanden HeuvelTwitterKatrina vanden Heuvel is editorial director and publisher of The Nation, America’s leading source of progressive politics and culture. She served as editor of the magazine from 1995 to 2019.
D.D. GuttenplanTwitterD.D. Guttenplan is editor of The Nation.