Harper's Magazine
Harper's Magazine (or simply Harper's) is a monthly general-interest magazine covering literature, politics, culture, and the arts. It is the second oldest continuously-published monthly magazine in the United States, with a current circulation of slightly more than 200,000 (the oldest magazine being Scientific American). Its editor is Lewis H. Lapham, who announced his retirement in November 2005. In the spring of 2006, current deputy editor Roger D. Hodge will assume Lapham's position as editor in chief.
Harper's was launched in June 1850 by the New York City book-publishing firm Harper & Brothers. The initial press run of 7,500 copies sold out immediately, and within six months circulation had reached 50,000.
The earliest issues consisted largely of material that had already been published in England, but the publication soon began to print the work of American artists and writers. It subsequently published commentaries by prominent politicians from both sides of the Atlantic, such as Winston Churchill and Woodrow Wilson.
In 1962, Harper & Brothers merged with Row, Peterson, & Company to become Harper & Row (now HarperCollins). Later, the magazine became a separate corporation and a division of the Minneapolis Star and Tribune Company. In 1980, when the parent company announced that Harper's would cease publication, John R. MacArthur and his father, Roderick, urged the boards of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Atlantic Richfield Company to establish the Harper's Magazine Foundation, which now operates the magazine.
In 1971, Lapham joined the magazine as managing editor, serving as editor from 1976 until 1981; in 1983, he resumed his position, which he continues to hold.
In 1984, Lapham and MacArthur — now publisher and president of the foundation — redesigned Harper's and introduced the popular Harper's Index (a list of statistics chosen and arranged, often for ironic effect), Readings, and the Annotation to complement its fiction, essays, and reporting.
Under the leadership of Lapham and MacArthur, the magazine continues to publish literary fiction by such authors as John Updike and George Saunders, and has emerged as a particularly vocal critic of America's domestic and foreign policies. Lapham's monthly Notebook columns have lambasted Bill Clinton's administration as well as the administration of George W. Bush, and since 2003, the magazine has paid special attention to the war in Iraq, with long articles on Fallujah and the post-war reconstruction of Iraq. Other feature stories have covered the debate over abortion, cloning, and global warming.
Controversies
- In an essay that appeared in the September 2004 issue of Harper's, Lewis Lapham fictionalized an account of the 2004 Republican National Convention, which had not yet taken place. Lapham subsequently apologized in a note to readers.
- The March 2006 issue contained a 15-page article by Celia Farber titled "Out of Control: AIDS and the corruption of medical science" that examined the ethics and industry of antiretroviral drugs. Farber's favorable presentation of virologist Peter Duesberg's argument that there is no direct link between HIV and AIDS garnered criticism, even among like-minded progressive publications.
Notable contributors
- Horatio Alger
- Winston Churchill
- Stephen A. Douglas
- Theodore Dreiser
- Jonathan Franzen
- Robert Frost
- Horace Greeley
- Mark Greif
- Barbara Grizzuti Harrison
- Winslow Homer
- William Dean Howells
- Seymour Hersh
- Henry James
- Jack London
- Fitz Hugh Ludlow
- Stanley Milgram
- John Muir
- Thomas Nast
- Frederic Remington
- Theodore Roosevelt
- George Saunders
- Henry L. Stimson
- Susan Straight
- Booth Tarkington
- Hunter S. Thompson
- Mark Twain
- John Updike
- David Foster Wallace
- Woodrow Wilson
Reference
- An American Album: One Hundred and Fifty Years of Harper's Magazine, a 712-page illustrated anthology with an introduction by Lewis H. Lapham and a foreword by Arthur Schlesinger Jr.