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Issues

Ah, the financial crash. Old media has kicked the bucket, and so has the economy. The founding Baffler crew reemerges one last time to say we told you so . . . with full-color art and a built-in ribbon bookmark. Christine Smallwood considers the difficulty of thinking about the Internet. Astra Taylor asks about the meaning of “free” in an age of digital piracy. Michael Lind resurrects the word “oligarchy.” A.S. Hamrah links the work of the painter Thomas Kinkade to the mortgage bubble—an observation that would be quoted frequently when Kinkade died a few years later. Naomi Klein discusses the continuing relevance of her ten-year-old classic, No Logo. Will Boisvert remembers Detroit. Mike Newirth remembers Nelson Algren. Walter Benn Michaels tells us how Americans’ fixation on social virtue has blinded us to our economic regression. Matt Taibbi reads Rod Blagojevich. And Maureen Tkacik drops an eight-thousand-word bomb on the literature of the financial crisis. “This issue of The Baffler was assembled in December 2009 in Chicago, Washington and New York after having been painstakingly ghostwritten by Bill Ayers,” reads the front matter. It was also the last issue edited by Thomas Frank and Dave Mulcahey.
 January 2010

no. 18—Margin Call

This one we produced in Chicago and Washington, D.C., at the tippy-top of the bubble. Thomas Frank describes the Washington culture of centrism. Thomas Geoghegan tells what inequality does to the rule of law. Andrew O’Hagan remembers where he was when William S. Burroughs died. Jim Arndorfer reveals how the fortune of a Milwaukee plutocrat helped to change the nation’s politics. Kim Phillips-Fein understands online poker as a symbol for bubble-time economics. Steve Evans describes the rise of backlash poetry and “Free-Market Verse.” Jim McNeill honors labor bureaucrat Victor Reuther. Catherine Liu observes the ultimate commodification of dissent in Singapore. Matt Weiland marvels at Chautauqua reenactors. With fiction from Martin Riker and Whitney Terrell. Spring 2006.
 June 2006

no. 17—Superslayer Storybook

The backlash is back, the New Economy is dead, and Thomas Frank does a close reading of Ann Coulter, uncovering the remarkable similarities between the newest of rights and the oldest of lefts. Kenneth Neil Cukier reminisces about the salad days of New Economy journalism. Steve Featherstone reminisces about the management practices of New Economy offices. Dan Raeburn rescues the reputation of Baffler household god H.L. Mencken. Ana Marie Cox reads paperback potboilers. Dubravka Ugrešić remembers happy days under Communism. Dan Kelly builds plastic models of movie monsters. Spring 2003.
 June 2003

no. 16—Nascar, How Proud a Sound!

The Global War on Terror has begun, and Ian Urbina and Chris Toensing tell of a colorful military clique wallowing in the new wave of defense dollars. Thomas Frank makes a pilgrimage to the Super Bowl. Martha Bayne appraises the cult of culinary excellence surrounding a certain celebrity chef. Andrew Friedman gets beneath the swirly titanium skin of the Bilbao Guggenheim. Terri Kapsalis draws frightening parallels between artificial insemination and American Girl dolls. Sharon O’Dair tells of the ne plus ultra in scholarly self-absorption: academic memoirs. J. D. Connor reads a submarine movie as a glorified deal memo for a corporate merger. Seth Sanders and Mike O’Flaherty remember rock music’s part in the backlash. With poetry from Daniel Bouchard. November 2002.
 November 2002

no. 15—Civilization with a Krag

An issue about that ungracious deity, the Market, which starts off by wondering why Americans continue to love their shabby god when it sure doesn’t love them back. Mike Newirth narrates the awful story of the gun culture. Josh Glenn blames youth quiescence on the brainwashing power of OK Soda. Clive Thompson describes Conrad Black’s effort to bring an American-style backlash to Canada. Earl Shorris recalls his personal fight with the neocons. Chris Lehmann traces the long history of the liberal-media myth. Harper’s magazine publisher John R. MacArthur remembers the backlash election of 1972 and the sparsely populated political group Republicans for McGovern. Martha Bridegam ponders the beginnings of the real estate bubble in booming San Francisco. With fiction from Christopher Sorrentino and Leon Forrest, plus a legendary illuminated cover by Mark Dancey. A classic issue—at the printer when fire destroyed the Baffler office in Chicago. Spring 2001.
 April 2001

no. 14—The God That Sucked

In which we kicked off our long-running study of American conservatism with a look at the nation’s long parade of kooks and cranks. In it, Jeff Sharlet remembers Westbrook Pegler, the “It Boy of attack journalism.” Dave Mulcahey remembers the backlash bible known as Reader’s Digest. Robert Nedelkoff remembers the black godfather of American fascism. And Dan Raeburn remembers when the beloved comic strip Li’l Abner took its sharp turn to the right. Dan Kelly tells the anti-heroic story of the John Birch Society. Daniel Lazare traces the career of The New Criterion’s Hilton Kramer. Christian Parenti singlehandedly launches the discipline of Seventies Studies with an essay about wildcat strikes. With microfilm-pastiche art by Hunter Kennedy and fiction by Aleksandar Hemon, no. 13 was editor in chief Thomas Frank’s favorite issue of them all. Winter 1999.
 December 1999

no. 13—Vox Populoid

Contains Thomas Frank’s classic essay, “New Consensus for Old,” in which he lays waste to the academic field of cultural studies. Plus: Jim Arndorfer stands in awe of the multilayered historical simulacrum that is Fado Irish Pub. Stephen Duncombe marvels at Cadillac, the historical embodiment of the aspirations of the middle class. Bryan Urstadt gives a blow-by-blow account of the luxuries of a major automobile press jaunt. We unearth a forgotten fictional delicacy by Thomas Beer. Christian Parenti offers a slab of gritty reporting on the California prison system. Loïc Wacquant translates Pierre Bourdieu’s treatise on neoliberal thought. Plus: Rock n roll is dead, and Mike O’Flaherty says that late capitalism killed it. Also: beautiful cover art by Patrick Welch. March 1999.
 March 1999

no. 12—Then Came Nylon

An issue on middleness, which starts out—of course—with an essay on USA Today and the theory behind that colorful newspaper. Then: Ben Metcalf seethes at the Mississippi River. Tom Vanderbilt explores a California ghost town that has become a federally subsidized film set. Dan Kelly lunches with Rotarians. Kim Phillips-Fein explores the bankruptcy industry and the morality of indebtedness a full ten years before these issues dawned on the rest of the nation. Marc Cooper remembers where he was on September 11, 1973. Also: an entertaining epistolary exchange between Chris Lehmann and Michael Bérubé. Summer 1998.
 June 1998

no. 11—Mid-Cult Today

An issue dedicated to business culture that features Matt Roth’s classic essay on Amway and how he happened to sign up for it. Elsewhere: Thomas Frank reads Babbitt. Tom Vanderbilt marvels at the ubiquity of branding. Nelson Smith provides a history of security alarms. Chris Lehmann pops the culture bubble. Kim Phillips-Fein looks at the urban poverty initiative Bridges-to-Work. Mike Newirth remarks bitterly on the urban gentrification initiative known as Wicker Park. Stephen Duncombe questions why history books written by establishmentarians focus on underdogs. Seth Sanders reviews records, including Atari Teenage Riot’s first compilation and Wu Tang Forever. Fall 1997. 128 pages.
 September 1997

no. 10—The Folklore of Capitalism

The New Economy is in full swing, and we decide to do an issue on labor. It features Jim Frederick’s classic essay on the intern economy (the spine of the issue bore the slogan, “Interns Built the Pyramids”). Thomas Frank tells us how class was disappearing. Josh Mason examines the ephemera of bull-market culture, including a punk-rock investment magazine. Tom Vanderbilt rips into office culture, from Dilbert to Successories. Chris Lehmann writes on the intersection of class and labor in the American university. Dan Bischoff recalls the story of union-buster Henry Clay Frick; Frances Reed remembers the Lawrence, Massachusetts textile strike of 1912; Christian Parenti remembers prison labor and tells why it’s coming back. With fiction from Lydia Millet, a nod to authors-in-hiding by Robert Nedelkoff, and a cover by Mark Dancey. Spring 1997.
 March 1997

no. 9—An Injury to All

“For all its great cable channels, the excellent new global cyber capitalism is turning out to be a lot like the simple, grinding, exploitative capitalism of a hundred years ago,” writes Thomas Frank in the lead essay, in which he begins to explore the ways we deceive ourselves about our basic economic interests. Mike Newirth pours a nice frosty cosmo for the One Percent, while Tom Vanderbilt calls Skyy vodka’s marketing efforts “a Reaganite shibboleth charted in the barroom.” Aaron Cohen praises Thirties band-leader Artie Shaw; Artie Shaw remembers dealing with the music industry in the Thirties. Gary Groth reads Quentin Tarantino. Daniel Harris writes about gay porn in the age of AIDS. Produced in Chicago in February 1996; 128 pages.
 December 1995

no. 8—The Cultural Miracle

A gimlet stare at what twentieth-century capitalism has done for the American metropolis. Keith White reads city lifestyle magazines. Paul Lukas pays a visit to Times Square, then a retail wasteland. Naomi Klein hangs out at an online café. Maura Mahoney reads Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and finds it depicts Savannah, Georgia, as a Southern Gothic theme park. David Mulcahey reflects on the “Screw Capital of the World”: Rockford, Illinois. Kim Phillips-Fein regrets how lotteries bilk the poor, and Stephen Duncombe rankles at the way cities police them. Plus: dialect fiction by Irvine Welsh. Produced in Chicago in June 1995.
 June 1995

no. 7—The City in the Age of Information