The Atlantic

The 10 Must-Read Stories of 2021

Including some of <em>The Atlantic</em>’s best work on the climate crisis, the fight over abortion, and more

Today we’re reflecting on what The Atlantic covered in 2021. Below you’ll find stories that are both cautionary and hopeful—and that cover both the natural world and our digital one.

To get a single Atlantic story curated and sent to your inbox each day, sign up for our One Story to Read Today newsletter.

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from The Atlantic

The Atlantic3 min read
Blood and Cheap Thrills in ’80s Los Angeles
When I saw Ti West’s X in 2022, I felt refreshed. Yes, his lurid slasher—set in 1979 on a rural farm where an adult-film shoot goes very, very wrong—was hardly the most original movie ever made. West is a technician who specializes in paying tribute
The Atlantic8 min read
How Congress Could Protect Free Speech on Campus
Last year at Harvard, three Israeli Jews took a course at the Kennedy School of Government. They say that because of their ethnicity, ancestry, and national origin, their professor subjected them to unequal treatment, trying to suppress their speech
The Atlantic8 min read
Don’t Give Up on Tourism. Just Do It Better.
In 1956, the poet Elizabeth Bishop worried about the imprudence and absurdity of going abroad. “Should we have stayed at home and thought of here?” she writes in her poem “Questions of Travel.” “Is it right to be watching strangers in a play / in thi

Related Books & Audiobooks