Brave Thinkers 2012
Our annual guide to the people risking everything in pursuit of big ideas
November 2012
In This Issue
Our annual Brave Thinkers list, an interview with Mike Bloomberg, the strangest potential threat to the president, the Army's culture of mediocrity, Benjamin Schwarz on the end of jazz, and more
Features
The Bloomberg Way
The mayor of New York on his soda ban, why he doesn't worry about approval ratings, governing in the age of Twitter, and the dumbed-down media
A Brief History of Brave Thinking
Radical ideas from our archives, featuring Ralph Waldo Emerson, Virginia Woolf, and more
Hacking the President's DNA
Exponential advances in synthetic biology pose a serious new national-security threat. Here's a radical proposal for how to combat it.
General Failure
How a culture of mediocrity has taken hold within the Army's leadership ranks—and why America's military future depends on uprooting it.
Clean
The irony of getting away with something was that you were your own executioner. In a pang of remorse, you could open your mouth and change your life.
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Nasser Nasser/AP My Conversion Will Not Be Televised
How I ended up on TV debating Salafism with an Egyptian cleric
R. Kikuo Johnson The Deer Paradox
It’s never been easier to shoot a buck. So why are hunters spending billions on high-tech gear?
Oliver Munday Steal My Book!
Why I’m abetting a rogue translation of my novel
John Cuneo The Court Crasher
Tom Goldstein changed how lawyers get to the Supreme Court—and how news gets out of it.
Jeffrey Westbrook Sprucing Up Your Cocktail
A lost flavor of the northern woods, rediscovered
Henry Lin/First Light/Corbis Being There
Put down your smartphone—the art of travel demands the end of multitasking.
Columns
Kevin Van Aelst Prisoners of Cable
Why we can’t break free from our TV overlords
Mike McGregor/Contour by Getty The Amis Obsession
How Martin Amis expanded the possibilities of English prose—including my own
Mark Weaver Busy and Busier
Productivity expert David Allen talks with James Fallows about the future of getting things done.
Books
Underwood & Underwood/Corbis The End of Jazz
How America’s most vibrant music became a relic
Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times Slaughterhouse Rules
A professor spends a season in hell.
The Gallery Collection/Corbis Cover to Cover
The deeply misanthropic paintings of Caspar David Freidrich; Flannery O'Connor as protagonist
Editor's Note
Warner Bros. Pictures/Sunset Boulevard/Corbis
Letters
Alison Jackson
