As you may know, Lapham’s Quarterly has experienced financial challenges over the past few years. In October of 2023, the Board of Directors of the American Agora Foundation, the nonprofit organization that oversees the magazine, decided to pause publication of the print edition and place the staff on unpaid leave. Throughout 2024, the Board will be considering all options for how the magazine can continue to operate in a climate that is increasingly inhospitable to print magazines.
Sixteen years after the Quarterly’s founding, Lewis H. Lapham’s vision for the magazine has never been more vital. If you would like to support our efforts, you are welcome to make a tax-deductible contribution through our fiscal sponsor, "The Nation Fund for Independent Journalism." When you make your online donation on their website using this link here, you will receive a receipt from the Nation Fund acknowledging your donation. *Please be sure to check the box that reads "I'd like to make this contribution in honor of someone" and enter Lapham’s Quarterly in the field that appears.*
If you are interested in mailing a check or making a wire transfer, please contact Paul W. Morris, CEO, at paul@laphamsquarterly.org.
The road ahead is challenging, but we remain hopeful that we can return to our regular publishing schedule soon. In the meantime, the editorial contents of our next issue, themed Energy, are complete. While its physical publication is on hold, your donations will help us to make much of this material freely available for all readers on our website, along with a full digital edition for subscribers. Highlights from the issue are listed below.
—The new issue’s Preamble was written by Lewis H. Lapham, and you can read it here.
—Original essays by Richard Cohen, Marc Da Costa, and Tom Roston on the history and future of energy.
—Voices in Time readings spanning four millennia by Marie Curie, Benjamin Franklin, Nikola Tesla, Erwin Schrödinger, Leonardo da Vinci, Upton Sinclair, Emily Dickinson, Kim Stanley Robinson, Plutarch, Ida M. Tarbell, Émilie du Châtelet, George Orwell, Sun Tzu, Ibn Khaldun, Ken Saro-Wiwa, Kenzaburo Oe, H.G. Wells, Moderata Fonte, James Agee, Anna Comnena, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Pliny the Elder, Rabih Alameddine, Alexander Hamilton, Michel de Montaigne, Aeschylus, Paul Lafargue, Joan Didion, Margaret Mead, Friedrich Engels, Geoffrey Chaucer, Mao Zedong, Plato, Rebecca Solnit, William Blake, and Carl Sagan.
—Sumptuous artwork by artists ancient, medieval, and modern, including René Magritte, Ogata Korin, Tintoretto, Piet Mondrian, Édouard Manet, Barry Flanagan, Peter Paul Rubens, Huang Zongdao, Lewis W. Hine, Hokusai, Kazimir Malevich, and Adrian L. Burrell.
—A beautifully illustrated map by Haisam Hussein depicting humankind’s preindustrial energy sources.
—A dozen charts and graphs created by Lapham’s Quarterly editors and designers elucidating humans’ relationship with energy since the dawn of time.
—Conversations, Miscellany, and Glossary: the usual set of special sections researched and edited by the staff of Lapham’s Quarterly.