Jeff Bezos’s Master Plan
What the Amazon founder and CEO wants for his empire and himself, and what that means for the rest of us.
November 2019
In This Issue
The Tech Issue: Jeff Bezos’s master plan, when GoFundMe gets ugly, and why the world is getting louder. Plus Mark Bowden on what military generals think of Trump, Jack Goldsmith’s family and government surveillance, Sandra Boynton, baseball cards, why you never see your friends, and more.
Cover Story
Get the digital edition of this issue.
Subscribers can access PDF versions of every issue in The Atlantic archive. When you subscribe, you’ll not only enjoy all of The Atlantic’s writing, past and present; you’ll also be supporting a bright future for our journalism.Features
Top Military Officers Unload on Trump
The commander in chief is impulsive, disdains expertise, and gets his intelligence briefings from Fox News. What does this mean for those on the front lines?
Why Everything Is Getting Louder
The tech industry is producing a rising din. Our bodies can’t adapt.
When GoFundMe Gets Ugly
The largest crowdfunding site in the world puts up a mirror to who we are and what matters most to us. Try not to look away.
My Family Story of Love, the Mob, and Government Surveillance
The whole truth took me decades to learn.
Dispatches
Edmon de Haro Why You Never See Your Friends Anymore
Our unpredictable and overburdened schedules are taking a dire toll on American society.
Luci Gutiérrez The Science of Getting Over It
Endings can be healthy, even when we fear them.
Timothy Sean O’Connell Sandra Boynton’s Captivating Universe
Her picture books have sold 75 million copies in the past four decades. What’s the secret to her far-reaching appeal?
Amy Lombard How Baseball Cards Got Weird
A very analog hobby finds a way to thrive in the digital age.
Esther Aarts Cows Need Friends to Be Happy
But modern farms deprive them of meaningful companionship.
Joe McKendry The Deportations Last Time
A very short book excerpt
The Culture File
Lucille Clerc Philip Pullman’s Problem With God
In His Dark Materials, now an HBO series, the author takes on organized religion. It’s not a fair fight.
Chloe Cushman Ways of Being
Three new books explore the variety of transgender experiences.
Illustration: Arsh Raziuddin; LIbrary of Congress / Getty Thomas Edison’s Greatest Invention
It wasn’t the light bulb or the phonograph or the moving picture—or anything tangible. It was a way of thinking about technology.
Departments
John Francis Ficara The Conversation: This Land Was Our Land
Readers respond to our September 2019 cover story and more.
Graham Roumieu
