Kevin Kelly, former Wired editor, has blessed us with a treasure trove of a top 100 list of good long-form magazine writing. He breaks it out by decade. For social scientists seeking to get ideas across to undergraduates, this might serve two critical purposes: 1) getting students to read stuff that is longer than a blog post and 2) engaging students with key ideas in social science through clear, concise, and engaging writing (something we social scientists don’t come across much in our scholarly journals).

Here are a few gems:

Vannevar Bush, “As We May Think.” Atlantic Magazine, July 1945.

Rachel Carson, “Silent Spring.” The New Yorker, June 16, 1962.

Hannah Arendt, “Eichmann in Jerusalem.” The New Yorker. Part I: February 16, 1963; Part II: February 23, 1963; Part III: March 2, 1963; Part IV: March 9, 1963; Part V: March 16, 1963.

Sydney Schanberg, “THE DEATH AND LIFE OF DITH PRAN; A Story of Cambodia” The New York Times Magazine, Sunday Magazine Special Section, January 20, 1980.

I could go on and on. The great part is that the vast majority of these articles are available on-line. You could probably construct an entire lower-division social problems course just from this list. What about you? Do you use non-fiction magazine articles in your courses? Is there a danger in overusing these types of pieces? Does the narrative distract from the theory? Thoughts?