Magazine Highlights August 2020

STOPPING PANDEMICS

By Richard Conniff

• PAST PANDEMICS: New disease outbreaks such as COVID-19 serve as harsh reminders of how easy it is for us to infect one another. Looking at previous pandemics—and the heroes that fought them—can help us understand important lessons for today. This feature explores the question of if we will learn these lessons and apply new solutions after the danger has passed.

• AVAILABLE:
  • Interviews with author and National Magazine Award winner Richard Conniff
  • Haunting images of past and current pandemics

THE FIGHT TO BE HEARD

By Rachel Hartigan Shea; photos by Celeste Sloman; illustrations by Johanna Goodman

• 100TH ANNIVERSARY OF WOMEN’S RIGHT TO VOTE: Despite women’s movements’ fierce progression through much of the 20th century—the work of countless advocacy groups like The League of Women Voters, Women’s Democratic National Club, Emily’s List, several iterations and revivals of the fringe group W.I.T.C.H., and newer “allies” like Kirsten Gillibrand’s five-year-old Off The Sidelines—representation has not come as swiftly, and today’s advancement has brought with it calls for women to “lead the resistance.” This feature explores the political tensions that have come with these advancements, which have positioned some women leaders as rhetorical targets, both from inside and outside of parties and generations.

• AVAILABLE:
  • Portraits of the women continuing to fight for rights for women
  • Interviews with National Geographic history writer Rachel Hartigan Shea

WATER EVERYWHERE AND NOWHERE

By Paul Salopek; photos by John Stanmeyer

• OUT OF EDEN WALK: This feature explores part 8 of Paul Salopek’s Out of Eden Walk. This foot journey across the north of the nation, from Pakistan to Myanmar, offers a storytelling map into this vital country that no other media platform can hope to ever match: a rich, atmospheric, boot-level look at India at the threshold of an era that, conceivably, might even be called the Indian Century. But also a look at an Indian landscape shuddering under huge new problems—and even sloping backward into regressive politics.

• AVAILABLE:
  • Interviews with Pulitzer prize-winning author Paul Salopek
  • Stunning images of Indian river systems in danger

I AM SCARED ALL THE TIME

By David Quammen; photos by Ronan Donovan

• CHIMPANZEE – HUMAN CONFLICT: In the Hoima district of western Uganda, near the eastern shore of Lake Albert, lies an archipelago of small forest fragments harboring almost 300 chimpanzees. These chimps, living in small communities on the various fragments, are making their last, desperate stands against the encroachment of humans. This feature explores the growing conflict between chimpanzees and humans as this district is the only place on the planet where two kinds of ape (chimp and human) are competing directly -and sometimes violently – for the same terrain and the same food resources.

• AVAILABLE:
  • Interviews with science, nature and travel writer David Quammen
  • Moving images of chimpanzees and humans intersecting

MEDIA CONTACTS: Anna Kukelhaus Dynan, Anna.Kukelhaus@natgeo.com, 202-912-6724, or Kelsey Taylor, Kelsey.Taylor@natgeo.com, 202-912-6776