– The Last Diplomat. As Robin Raphel worked for the State Department in Pakistan, her brand of traditional diplomacy ran into the new realities of covert surveillance. The collision turned her life upside down. Una funcionaria con contactos increíbles y opiniones polémicas o una espía y traidora al servicio de Islamabad?
– Graeme Wood en The Atlantic: The American Leader in the Islamic State. John Georgelas was a military brat, a drug enthusiast, a precocious underachiever born in Texas. Now he is a prominent figure within the Islamic State. Here’s the never-before-reported story of his long and troubling journey.
– C. J. Chivers en The New York Times: The Fighter: A U.S. Marine’s long journey, from the war in Afghanistan to an Illinois prison. The Marine Corps taught Sam Siatta how to shoot. The war in Afghanistan taught him how to kill. Nobody taught him how to come home. Una larga historia de un caso en realidad bastante simple. Un chico introvertido que fue a la guerra y descubrió que disparar se le daba muy bien. Volvió, pero traumatizado. Y un día cometió un error estando borracho. La Justicia fue durísima. El periodista (ex marine como él y claramente implicado) acaba cambiando su vida, con una intervención (y ahora un artículo) que seguramente va más allá de los limites del propio periódico.
– Matt Wolfe en The New Republic: The Last Unknown Man. He appeared out of nowhere. He had no name, no memory, no past. He was the only person the FBI ever listed as missing even though they knew where he was. How could B.K. Doe remain anonymous in the modern age’s matrix of observation?
– Bryan Denton en TNYT: ISIS Sent Four Car Bombs. The Last One Hit Me.El relato de un fotógrafo norteamericano que acampañaba a una unidad de élite del ejército iraquí durante la operación para la liberación de Mosul. Una comitiva de vehículos y la tensión de ir los primeros, siendo atacados una y otra vez. El cuarto coche bomba, al final, se acerca lo suficiente. Por suerte, Denton y un soldado iraquí sólo tienen heridas superficiales.
– Robert Sapolsky en Nautilus Magazine: My Personal Hero: Robert Sapolsky on Rudolf Virchow. Otra vida extraordinaria: When the 19C German physician Rudolf Virchow was not otherwise engaged leading a radical left-wing political party and sparring with Bismarck in the Reichstag, he “basically founded modern pathology”. He also published a “monumental cell biology text” which first named and described conditions including spina bifida and leukemia; accompanied Heinrich Schliemann on archaeology expeditions; and founded Germany’s first anthropological society. “Plus, he had one great beard”.
– Michelle Dean en Buzzfeed: The Murder of Munchausen. Dee Dee Wanted Her Daughter To Be Sick, Gypsy Wanted Her Mom To Be Murdered. Dee Dee Blancharde was a model parent: a tireless single mom taking care of her gravely ill child. But after Dee Dee was killed, it turned out things weren’t as they appeared — and her daughter Gypsy had never been sick at all.
– Daphne Merkin en Bookforum: The Trauma of the Gifted Child.The memoirs of Holocaust survivor Saul Friedländer. Una larga reseña de las memorias y de la vida de Friedländer, nacido en Checoslovaquia, criado y escondido en Francia, separado de sus padres (que murieron en Auschwitz), educado en Harvard y uno de los primeros historiadores del Holocausto.
– Christopher de Bellaigue: Eton and the making of a modern elite. The world’s most famous school aspires to become an agent of social change; but, as old boy Christopher de Bellaigue learns when he goes back, it is also an increasingly effective way for the global elite to give its offspring an expensive leg up in life
– Y uno más ligero para terminar. David Coward en el TLS: On the trail of the Man in the Iron Mask. No, la másacara no podía ser de acero. Y no, seguramente no era el hermano gemelo del rey, pese a Dumas.
Maven Trap 