In February 1953, a violent North Sea storm crashed through the Dutch levee system, killing 1,835 people and leaving a hundred thousand others homeless. In the aftermath, the country responded by building the Delta Works, the world’s most sophisticated system of flood defenses. According to John McQuaid, a reporter for Mother Jones on assignment in … Read more
Viewed from room 1238 of the White Swan Hotel, the jagged ten-story tenements of Guangzhou, China, are softened by smog. Below, the United States Consulate complex sprawls beside century-old British colonial structures. “Pretty good view, isn’t it?” asks Paul Stueber, an earnest forty-four-year-old drum instructor from Minneapolis. He packs a baby bottle into a blue … Read more
It’s another spring evening at the Mall of America, where the Glitz store is in full bloom with taffeta and tulle. Pastel Cinderella dresses glimmer under the fluorescent lights, and the skirts bursting from these sleeveless bodices are so lush, they make the satin wedding gown I wore fourteen years ago seem downright drab. I … Read more