CONTACT: Caitlin Graf, The Nation, press [at] thenation.com, 212-209-5400
New York, NY — January 12, 2015 — Nation editor and publisher Katrina vanden Heuvel announces the magazine’s extensive and exciting plans to commemorate its 150th anniversary in 2015, marking its tenure as America’s oldest weekly magazine.
Celebrating American and world history, and highlighting the role of The Nation in illuminating that history, the magazine will commemorate its sesquicentennial with a blockbuster special issue, numerous new digital products, a dedicated book on the magazine’s illustrious history, and a feature-length documentary. We will also host a series of nationwide celebrations fostering dialogue, debate, reflection, and action among progressives and free-thinkers—politicians, musicians, writers, activists, poets, and our esteemed readers.
Below, please find vanden Heuvel’s announcement in full. For booking requests or further information, please see contact information above.
The Nation Turns 150
For 150 years, The Nation has kept readers informed about what we called in our very first issue “the conflict of ages, the great strife between the few and the many, between privilege and equality, between law and power, between opinion and the sword.” Founded by abolitionists just months after the end of the Civil War, The Nation has never shied from taking sides in that conflict, and it has instigated a great deal of progress along the way.
But while we are excited to revisit the matchless history of The Nation—closely tied, as it is, to the history of the nation—the most gratifying part of our 150th anniversary will be the opportunity to share the important work The Nation is doing today.
Throughout the year, The Nation will mark its 150th anniversary with a variety of innovative print and digital products, a nationwide series of live events and a documentary film by award-winning filmmaker, Barbara Kopple.
At TheNation.com, we launched a new feature on January 1 called The Almanac. Highlighting historic events from each day in history, these daily posts offer an alternative view of world history as seen through the eyes of Nation writers and editors and offer indispensable context to today’s events.
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Additionally, every month or two during the anniversary year, TheNation.com will highlight one Nation Ideal on which the magazine has been instigating progress since 1865: racial justice, gender equality, environmental sustainability and civil liberties, to name a few. TheNation.com will feature relevant articles from our archives with commentary by some of the most prominent Nation writers today. For each Ideal there will be a Journey Through History—an interactive multimedia feature that will make learning about the broad sweep of history of each Ideal, both inside and outside the pages of The Nation, visually appealing, accessible and downright fun.
In March, we will publish a paper and e-book history of the magazine written by The Nation’s London bureau chief, D.D. Guttenplan—award-winning biographer of the late Nation great, I.F. Stone—followed in April by a 200-page special anniversary issue featuring essays from the archives by Hannah Arendt, Jonathan Schell, James Baldwin, Martin Luther King Jr. and many others, alongside original contributions by Eric Foner, Noam Chomsky, Toni Morrison, Michael Moore, Naomi Klein, Stephen F. Cohen, Rebecca Solnit and many, many more.
Meanwhile, throughout the year, Nation writers and editors will be touring cities coast to coast hosting panel discussions, variety shows and other audience-inclusive events both to celebrate the magazine’s history and to share visions of radically-different futures. From New York to Tucson to Los Angeles to Madison to Salt Lake City and Seattle to Portland to Washington, DC, and back to New York—and many places in between—these events will put Nation readers, new and old, in conversation with their favorite writers on the issues that matter most: Naomi Klein on the history of environmental activism. Dave Zirin on reporting from the intersection of politics, culture and sports. Kshama Sawant on the promise and peril—and the history—of municipal socialism. Robert Reich on inequality. Ursula LeGuin exposing the power of capitalism, literature and imagination. Patricia Williams and Isabel Wilkerson arguing for a Third Reconstruction. Individually and together, these events will create a special, one-time experience, a gathering-together of The Nation family, which we know will leave an indelible mark on the magazine, and, we hope, on our readers as well.
We hope you will join us for what promises to be an exceptional year, and we hope you’ll invite others to join us as well. At the end of 1865, The Nation declared that it would go down as “one of the most famous years of history.” We are confident that with your help, the 150th anniversary of The Nation will be one, too.
Please watch this space and http://www.thenation.com/150 for regularly updated information.
All best,
Katrina vanden Heuvel
Editor and Publisher, The Nation
ABOUT THE NATION
Founded in 1865, The Nation is America’s oldest weekly magazine, serving as a critical, independent voice in American journalism and a platform for investigative reporting and spirited debate on issues of import to the progressive community. Through changing times and fashions, The Nation and TheNation.com offer consistently informed and inspired reporting and analysis of breaking news, politics, social issues and the arts—never faltering in our editorial commitment to what Nation Publisher Emeritus Victor Navasky has called “a dissenting, independent, trouble-making, idea-launching journal of critical opinion.”
