The tough and hyper-energetic diplomat’s career spanned more than four decades. He leaves behind a complicated legacy—and in Afghanistan, an unfinished mission.

Lewis was a true Renaissance man, a lover of music, history, literature, language, botany, geography, sports, boating, cards—the list is endless—all of which enliven his puzzles.

This past week brought us two losses that will be felt throughout The Nation and GRITtv families.

His was an all-American odyssey, and in his final decades he was a man on a mission.

Lewis was a true Renaissance man, a lover of music, history, literature, language, botany, geography, sports, boating, cards—the list is endless—all of which enliven his puzzles.

Johnson was a scholar and author who saw our devolving American world with striking clarity and prescience and wrote about it with precision, passion and courage

Remembering David Markson (1927–2010), whose playful novels pushed storytelling to the edge of understanding.

Remembering Ben Sonnenberg (1936–2010)—writer, publisher, boulevardier—and his quarterly, Grand Street.

Teresa Stack remembers our colleague Gene Case; Esther Kaplan reports on Sarah Shourd's return home from Iran.

When the lens is turned on Southerners, it's often the ignorant ones, like Pastor Terry Jones, that we see. That makes it doubly important to remember the brave radicals, like 1920s labor activist Ella May Wiggins, can sprout from the South, too.