What We're Reading

Preeti Aroon

• "And Then There Was One," by Monte Reel in the Washington Post Magazine. What if you were the last person in your tribe? In a gripping tale about property rights, economic development, and indigenous peoples, this article describes how a lone indigenous man, living as the last of his tribe in the Brazilian rain forest, was granted his own protected patch of land that is the size of Hong Kong.

Christine Chen

• Atonement, by Ian McEwan. Read the book and saw the movie. Beautiful storytelling. WWII scenes showing the Allied evacuation of Dunkirk are especially evocative. Thumbs up for both.

Travis Daub

• "Polish teen derails tram after hacking train network," by John Leyden in The Register. Remember how the FAA is worried that terrorists could hack Boeing's fancy new plane? Well, a 14-year-old in Lodz, Poland, actually took control of his city's tram system using a modified TV remote control.

Blake Hounshell

• "Gold is a bright prospect for the bold," in Monday's Financial Times. Columnist John Dizard paints a scenario wherein the price of gold is peaks, Spain drops out of the eurozone, and gold rebounds.

Joshua Keating

• "What People Will Die For," by Fareed Zakaria in Newsweek International. Zakaria argues that the prevailing trends of globalization and democratization are weakening the nation state and empowering ethnic nationalists throughout the world. He applies this trend to Pakistan, Kenya, India, and Kosovo as well as my favorite geopolitical obsession: Belgium.

Carolyn O'Hara

• The Translator: A Tribesman's Memoir of Darfur, by Daoud Hari. Hari's simple prose can't mask the devastation he suffers as his village is destroyed, his family killed, and his efforts to get the word about the genocide go unheard.