Showdown #2: Harper’s Magazine vs Atlantic Monthly
In the second of a series of completely random one on one battles we have a battle of preferred magazines…
In this corner is Harper’s Magazine: half of each issue consisting of amusing or strange, often fascinating short pieces culled from other sources (the sources range from other magazines to such ephemera as in-house company memos), the other half original reviews, fiction, and sometimes investigative reporting, plus Lewis Lapham’s erudite but predictably liberal editorial,
And in this corner, Atlantic Monthly: Usually terrific long investigative news stories (sometimes in multi-issue series), plus reviews and many short (one-column or one-page) articles which often report recent findings or global statistics, with a liberal slant but not as predictably so as Harper’s .
I personally enjoy them both. An ideal blend for me would be the short secondary-source pieces from Harper’s plus the long investigative reports from Atlantic .
Harpers, easy. The Atlantic has very interesting stuff in it, but I find that too much of each issue is devoted to really long pieces about international politics. Mostly, they center around one person - some obscure figure in the Muslim world, lately - and give basically a twenty page biography of them. It’s nice that they’re devoted to international reporting, but their main pieces just don’t seem to be good enough at synthesizing information into something relevant. Long in-depth articles about things that matter are great, but huge, essentially biographical pieces going into the minutia of how some random activist or scientist or politician got to be where they are just don’t really say much of anything. I find their briefer articles - the three or four pagers before and after the cover stories - tend to be far more interesting and relevant.
I love Harpers for the weird, random miscellany they gather from other places, along with their longer pieces. They do huge long articles, but they’re mostly focused on discussing and analyzing a complex topic, not on the sort of irrelevant details that stuff in the Atlantic is filled with. Plus, I think Harpers does a far better job of playing the role of the watchful media - they have really wonderful pieces discussing significant problems in the U.S. and how they came to be.
The Atlantic is, for my money, the most well written periodical out there. Additionally, it doesn’t feel the need to hit me over the head if I disagree with any given liberal position, and is more likely to present a convincing argument, which I welcome. Also, I like “really long pieces about international politics”
The Atlantic also has a top notch annual short story issue, which is among my favorite reads even though I usually dislike that sort of thing. It’s just a fun magazine, and one of my favorites, though admittedly I don’t read Harper’s enough for a fair comparison.
Hey, I love when Harpers goes all international politics. It’s the particular style that the Atlantic has - I just don’t find those long articles all that informative when it comes to that. They spend so much time on biographies or getting into picayune details that they aren’t any good for painting broader pictures, which is really what I would like to understand. I just tend to find their long pieces really light on actual context and analysis.
Also, I’ve never particularly heard the Atlantic called a liberal magazine; it’s no surprise they don’t hit you over the head with liberal positions. On the other hand, I do sometimes feel like reading Louis Lapham is kinda masturbatory, since he doesn’t challenge my own views all that much.
I have, in my possession, four volumes of the Atlantic Monthly dating to just after the Civil War. There is, for example, an article by a british man on the post-slavery south. And another by Fredrick Douglass.
The quality of the magazine has not changed in the last century and a half. I am assured when I read an article in it, it is unbiased, accurate, and insightful. And it gives me new insight into the world around me.
Trouble with the New Yorker is that it’s about as long as the other two, but it comes every week. When I subscribed, I used to feel so guilty that I didn’t want to check the mail because I could never keep up.
I don’t know why that would make you feel guilty. I mean, it’s not like you were being graded on it. I look through the NYer for the cartoons, for the book reviews, for David Sedaris, for the political writing, and the fiction; if something doesn’t interest me, then I don’t read it without a whit of remorse. Why do you feel guilty?
It’s not that it didn’t interest me - I just didn’t freaking have time to read it. I’d always be a couple issues behind, so when a new one came it was like more on the to-do list. Seemed like such a waste, subscribing to a magazine and then skipping three quarters of it because I just didn’t have time.
I use to love Harper’s, but they became really politically shrill at some point, and I stopped subscribing- around the time Lewis Lapham did his cover story blowjob on Ralph Nader. I think both Harper’s and The Atlantic changed editors recently, and I’m curious as to how they’ve changed. I, too, prefer the New Yorker to either.
Atlantic, definitely. I love the quality of the writing. There are times when, somewhat like Excalibre, I’ve found myself wondering exactly why such an indepth piece was presented on a seeming random obscure figure even though I enjoy reading it, and then sure enough three or four years go by and some big news story breaks that the (formerly) obscure guy played a major role in and I can say “Whoa, I know all about that guy, I read a profile of him in the Atlantic.” Then I can walk around the office making insightful commentary, like “You know, his mother raised show terriers.”
I find Harper’s to be too uneven. It worries me that they often cross the line from liberal slant into shrill dementia, and don’t seem to realize it. I say this as a liberal myself. I read stuff in Harper’s and I think “wow, and we wonder why a lot of people don’t take us seriously.” Lately I’ve even found myself reading the short pieces and thinking that they were selected more for their smug value than their interest value. I continue to think the quality of their fiction selections is very high, so that’s mostly what I read it for these days.
I agree with Gaucho and Fabulous Creature - I prefer the New Yorker (I just skip stuff I don’t want to read…) but like both magazines in the OP. I suppose I prefer Harper’s a bit more simple because the articles can be a little shorter…
