The Ideas List 2012
From banning gasoline and hiring introverts to abolishing the secret ballot and befriending Islamists, our collection of modest proposals. Plus an online-only report on big ideas in politics, culture, business, tech, and more.
July/August 2012
In This Issue
The biggest ideas of 2012, why women still can't have it all, Caitlin Flanagan on JFK's affairs, new fiction by Elmore Leonard, and more
Features
Why Women Still Can’t Have It All
It’s time to stop fooling ourselves: the mothers who have made it to the top of their profession are superhuman, rich, or self-employed. Here’s what has to change for the rest of us.
Jersey Boys
Chris Christie and Bruce Springsteen—a tale of politics, rock and roll, and unrequited love
The Measured Man
Larry Smarr is charting his every bodily function in minute detail—and may have found the future of health care.
Fiction: Ice Man
He saw deputies in their serious hats coming through the restaurant from the kitchen, four white guys who looked like they meant business.
Get the digital edition of this issue.
Subscribers can access PDF versions of every issue in The Atlantic archive. When you subscribe, you’ll not only enjoy all of The Atlantic’s writing, past and present; you’ll also be supporting a bright future for our journalism.Dispatches
Zohar Lazar Hell on Bicycle Wheels
Outside Olympic Park, the most cutthroat, reckless, competitive race of 2012 is already under way.
Associated Press Olympic Idol
Who will carry the flame for Britain?
Pius Utomi Ekpei/Afp/Getty World’s Worst Traffic Jam
How a 40-mile trip to Lagos took 12 hours
Joe Ciardiello The Last Days of Foie Gras
Irate chefs, frenzied gourmands, and the rise of animal rights in California
Ciro de Luca/Reuters For the Love of Art
Destroying paintings in order to save them
Graeme Wood Wrestlemaniac
A close encounter with the sport’s most authentic madman
Glenna Gordon Finding the Perfect Wave in Liberia
Its old war scars healed, the West African coast beckons surfers of all varieties.
Red Bull Stratos/Associated Press The Right Spacesuit
New technology lets a skydiver fall from 120,000 feet. Could it also save astronauts’ lives?
Columns
David Johnston The Triumph of the Family Farm
Farming is in the midst of a startling renaissance—one that holds lessons for America’s economic future.
Herb Greene A Long, Strange Trip
How a new 14-DVD box set turned a lifelong skeptic on to the music of the Grateful Dead
Books
Ruggero Vanni/Corbis A Renaissance Palace and a Loaf of Wonder Bread
Revising Spain's Escorial, plus the history of a maligned American food
John F. Kennedy Library/Getty Jackie and the Girls
Mrs. Kennedy’s JFK problem—and ours
Cover to Cover
Hilary Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell returns; the history of Maurice Sendak’s medium; a better parking lot; and more
Editor's Note
Detroit Institute of Arts/The Bridgeman Art Library
Letters
The Conversation
Responses and reverberations
Gallery
Poetry
Advice
Nishant Choksi What’s Your Problem?
When to lie to kids, and other advice
