Harper's Magazine

Infobox Magazine
title = Harper's


image_size = 175px
image_caption = November 2004 issue
publisher =
circulation = 220,000
frequency = monthly
language = English
category = art, culture, literature, politics
editor = Roger Hodge
editor_title = Editor
firstdate = 1850
country = flagcountry|United States
website = [http://www.harpers.org/ www.harpers.org]
issn =

"Harper's Magazine" (also "Harper's") is a monthly, general-interest magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts. It is the second-oldest, continuously-published monthly magazine ("Scientific American" is the oldest) in the U.S.; current circulation is more than 220,000 issues. The current editor is Roger Hodge, who replaced Lewis Lapham on 31 March 2006. [cite web | url = http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/20/AR2006032001945_pf.html | title = Lewis Lapham Lights Up: The Longtime, Two-Time Harper's Editor Is Retiring, but Not Quitting | date = 2006-03-21 | last = Carlson | first = Peter | publisher = Washington Post | accessdate = 2006-03-27] "Harper's Magazine" has won many National Magazine Awards. [ [http://www.harpers.org/advertising/OLMediaKit/awardsandhonors.pdf Awards and Honors (PDF)] at Harper's site]

History

"Harper's Magazine" was launched as "Harper's New Monthly Magazine" in June of 1850, by the New York City publisher Harper & Brothers; who also founded Harper's Bazaar magazine, later growing to become HarperCollins Publishing. The first press run, of 7,500 copies, sold out almost immediately; circulation was some 50,000 issues six months later. [ [http://www.harpers.org/advertising/OLMediaKit/History.pdf History of Harper's (PDF)] on Harper's site]

The early issues reprinted material already published in England, but the magazine soon was publishing the work of American artists and writers, and commentary by the likes of Winston Churchill and Woodrow Wilson.

In 1962, Harper & Brothers merged with Row, Peterson & Company, becoming Harper & Row (now HarperCollins). Later, the magazine was separately incorporated, and was a division of the Minneapolis Star and Tribune Company. On 17 June 1980, the Star Tribune announced it would cease publishing "Harper's Magazine" after the August 1980 issue, however, on 9 July 1980, John R. MacArthur and his father, Roderick, obtained pledges from the directorial boards of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Atlantic Richfield Company, and CEO Robert Orville Anderson to amass the one-and-a-half million dollars needed to establish the Harper's Magazine Foundation that currently publishes the magazine. [Facts on File 1980 Yearbook, pp.501, 582 ] Citation | last =Woo| first =Elaine| author-link =Elaine Woo | title = Arco founder led firm into major civic philanthropy | newspaper = Los Angeles Times | pages =B6 | year =2007 | date =2007-12-05
url = http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-anderson5dec05,1,3067816.story?coll=la-news-obituaries&ctrack=3&cset=true]

In 1963, the magazine published the short story, "The Witch of Westport", by Norman Mailer, that later was the basis for the television comedy program Bewitched. In the 1970s, it published Seymour Hersh's reporting of the My Lai massacre. In 1971, after the controversial editor Willie Morris left, Lewis H. Lapham became the managing editor, once from 1976 until 1981; and again, from 1983 until 2006.

In 1984, Lapham and MacArthur — now publisher and president of the foundation — redesigned "Harper's" and introduced the "Harper's Index" (ironic statistics arranged for thoughtful effect), "Readings", and the "Annotation" departments to complement its fiction, essays, and reportage.

Under the Lapham-MacArthur leadership, "Harper's" magazine continues publishing literary fiction by the likes of John Updike, George Saunders, et al. Politically, "Harper's" is an especially vocal critic of U.S. domestic and foreign policies. Editor Lapham's monthly "Notebook" columns have lambasted the Clinton and the George W. Bush administrations, and, since 2003, the magazine has concentrated on reportage about U.S. war against Iraq, with long articles about the battle for Fallujah, and the cronyism of the American "reconstruction" of Iraq. Moreover, other stories have covered abortion, cloning, and global warming. ["An American Album: One Hundred and Fifty Years of Harper's Magazine", a seven hundred twelve-page illustrated anthology, with an introduction by Lewis H. Lapham and a foreword by Arthur Schlesinger Jr.]

In April 2006, "Harper's" began publishing the "Washington Babylon" blog in its [http://harpers.org/index.html site] , wherein Washington Editor Ken Silverstein writes about corrupt American politics. In 2007, "Harper's" added the "No Comment" blog, by Scott Horton, about legal controversies, Central Asian politics, and German Studies. In 2008, "Harper's" added the [http://harpers.org/subjects/Sentences "Sentences"] blog, by contributing editor Wyatt Mason, about literature and "belle lettres". Also, writers compose the "Weekly Review", single-sentence summaries of political, scientific, and bizarre news; like the "Harper's Index", the "Weekly Review" items are humorously and ironically arranged.

Controversies

In his essay "Tentacles of rage: The Republican propaganda mill, a brief history," published in the September 2004 issue, Lewis H. Lapham fictionalized his reportage of the 2004 Republican National Convention, which had yet to occur. He apologized in a note. [Shafer, Jack. " [http://www.slate.com/id/2106548 Lewis Lapham Phones It In: Figuring out what's wrong with Harper's magazine] ." "Slate" 15 September 2004.] [Lapham, Lewis H. " [http://harpers.org/archive/2004/09/0080196 Tentacles of rage: The Republican propaganda mill, a brief history] ." "Harper's" September 2004. p. 43-53.]

The March 2006 issue contained the Celia Farber reportage, "Out of Control: AIDS and the Corruption of Medical Science", presenting Peter Duesberg's theory that HIV does not cause AIDS. [cite book
url = http://harpers.org/OutOfControl.html | title = Out Of Control, AIDS and the corruption of medical science | last = Farber | first = Celia | publisher = Harper's Magazine | date = 2006-03-01 | accessdate = 2006-03-13] [cite book | url = http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/13/business/media/13harpers.html | title = An Article in Harper's Ignites a Controversy Over H.I.V. | publisher = The New York Times | last = Miller | first = Lia | date = 2006-03-13 | accessdate = 2006-03-13] It was strongly criticized by AIDS activists, [cite book
url = http://www.poz.com/articles/401_2710.shtml | accessdate = 2006-03-13 | title = Farber Feedback | publisher = POZ Magazine] scientists, [ [http://www.aidstruth.org/harper-farber.php Letters from scientists and physicians criticizing Harper's for poor fact-checking of Celia Farber's article on AIDS.] Accessed 21 Oct 2006.] the "Columbia Journalism Review", [ [http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/harpers_races_right_over_the_e.php?page=1 Harper's Races Right over the Edge of a Cliff] , by Gal Beckerman. Published in the "Columbia Journalism Review" on March 8 2006. Accessed June 14 2007.] and others, as inaccurate and for promoting a scientifically-discredited theory. [cite book
url = http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion?pid=65330 | title = Harper's Publishes AIDS Denialist | last = Kim | first = Richard | date = 2006-03-02 | accessdate = 2006-03-13] The Treatment Action Campaign, a South African organisation working for greater popular access to HIV treatments, posted a response by eight researchers documenting more than fifty errors in the article. [cite book|url=http://www.tac.org.za/Documents/ErrorsInFarberArticle.pdf | title = Errors in Celia Farber's March 2006 article in Harper's Magazine | Last = Gallo | First = Robert | coauthors = Nathan Geffen, Gregg Gonsalves, Richard Jeffreys, Daniel R. Kuritzkes, Bruce Mirken, John P. Moore, Jeffrey T. Safrit | publisher = Treatment Action Campaign | date = 2006-03-04 | accessdate = 2006-03-13]

In summer of 2006, Harper's serially published John Robert Lennon's novel "Happyland" when its original publisher, W. W. Norton, decided not to publish it, fearing a libel lawsuit. The protagonist is doll magnate Happy Masters, whose story parallels the life of Pleasant Rowland, the creatrix of the American Girl dolls business. [ [http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/27/books/review/Donadio.t.html NYT Book Review] ]

Notable contributors

* Horatio Alger * John R Chapin * Winston Churchill * Stephen A. Douglas * Theodore Dreiser * Irwin Edman * Jonathan Franzen * Robert Frost * Barbara Garson * John Taylor Gatto * Horace Greeley

* Mark Greif * Barbara Grizzuti Harrison * Edward Hoagland * Richard Hofstadter * Winslow Homer * William Dean Howells * Seymour Hersh * Henry James * Naomi Klein * Jack London * Fitz Hugh Ludlow * Norman Mailer

* Stanley Milgram * John Stuart Mill * John Muir * Thomas Nast * Frederic Remington * Marilynne Robinson * Richard Rodriguez * Theodore Roosevelt * George Saunders * Jane Smiley * John Steinbeck * Henry L. Stimson * Susan Straight * Booth Tarkington

* Hunter S. Thompson * Mark Twain * John Updike * Kurt Vonnegut * David Foster Wallace * E.B. White * Woodrow Wilson

References

External links

* [http://www.harpers.org/ Harper's website]
* [http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpcoop/moahtml/title/harp.html Library of Congress collection,] searchable text of magazine from 1850–1899 with links to scanned pages.