November 2011

Departments: Opening Announcement, Cover, From Editor, Letters, Wild Things, Indelible Images, My Kind of Town, This Month in History

Now on Our Website, The Civil War, Around the Mall

A Goddess Goes Home

Following years of haggling over its provenance, one of the most celebrated antiquities has returned to Italy from California.

By Ralph Frammolino

Go With the Flow

A new exhibition of 19th-century “wonders” highlights water’s role in America’s expansion.

By Daniel Walker Howe

Aftershocks

The Arab Spring unleashed a spate of new violence against Egypt’s Christian minority.

By Joshua Hammer

Defending the Rhino

In South Africa, police and conservationists have turned to technology to combat an alarming increase in rhinoceros poaching.

By Richard Conniff

Shanghai Gets Supersized

Boasting 200 skyscrapers, China’s financial capital has grown like no other city on earth—and shows few signs of stopping.

By David Devoss with additional reporting by Lauren Hilgers

The Eyes Have It

Brought to Europe from the New World by Spanish explorers, potatoes fed the continent and made modern agriculture possible.

By Charles C. Mann

The Last Page

Guess who came to dinner.

By Angus Maclachlan