Essays
essays
How the world’s tallest peak went from unexplored to overcrowded.
Wall Street Journal, 2024..
Explorers Robert Peary and Frederick Cook divided the nation along partisan lines that are very much recognizable today. (Adapted from my book Battle of Ink and Ice.)
Time, 2023.
Where did the “view from nowhere” come from? (Adapted from my book Battle of Ink and Ice.)
The Atlantic, 2023.
Are New York City’s disastrous turn-of-the-century liquor laws a cautionary tale?
Atlas Obscura, 2019.
Achieving “blue mind” amid climate panic.
Granta, 2017.
Why we keep looking for lost jungle cities.
Paris Review Daily, 2017.
They don’t have owners—and that’s the point.
Paris Review Daily, 2017.
More big creatures are on the brink, and our own species is the poorer for it.
Granta, 2016.
A film, a farm, and a renowned photographer’s planet-saving project.
Guernica, 2015.
Remembering Les Blank, a filmmaker who hungered for authenticity.
Guernica, 2014.
Stories of a shrinking rainforest.
The Daily Beast, 2014.
Why are commercial airlines so crappy?
Wall Street Journal, 2013.
On the end of the cold-weather counterculture.
Wall Street Journal, 2010.