Recommended Writing
All longform pieces recommended on The Slow Scroll
The history of the bulldozer is darker than you might think, and its evolution goes beyond simple construction and demolition. Joe Zadeh explores its origins in violent voter suppression, to its weaponization in war and state-sanctioned home demolitions, and how it has been a sym...
Urban rats are thriving in a warming world, and the implications are troubling. As temperatures rise, rate are finding more opportunities to eat and reproduce, leading to a surge in sightings across major cities like New York and Washington, D.C. Benji Jones explores the links be...
As Chile commemorated the 50th anniversary of Augusto Pinochet's coup, President Gabriel Boric's unveiling of the National Search Plan aimed to confront painful historical wounds. The initiative seeks to find the remains of many Chileans who disappeared during the regime, but tru...
In a major cryptocurrency scam, Shan Hanes, the president of a small Kansas town bank, made unauthorized wire transfers totaling over $47 million. He converted the funds into cryptocurrencies, only to lose them to a crypto crime network. The town has been left devastated by the l...
Ben Kodres-O’Brien reviews Sandeep Vaheesan's new book, "Democracy in Power: A History of Electrification in the United States." The book explores the dominance of corporate interests in electricity generation, advocating for a more democratic approach to decarbonization.
Lisa Schiff, once a prominent art adviser, now faces the possibility of two decades in prison for stealing millions from her clients. This piece not only recounts how this happened, but also how Schiff reflects on her descent.
Despite committing to become a "zero waste" nation, Turkey has become a dumping ground for Europe’s plastic waste, with dire consequences for local farmers and the environment. Alexander Clapp reports on how much of the imported plastic is either burned, dumped illegally, or con...
Names are not just labels; they carry stories, power, and cultural memory. In this excerpt from his book, “Names of New York,” Joshua Jelly-Schapiro invites us to reconsider how the names we encounter daily affect our perceptions and connections to the places we inhabit.
In the 1980s, a significant shift occurred in global food production, allowing the average person to access enough calories for the first time in history. Charles C. Mann explores how innovations from the Green Revolution, particularly advances in fertilization, irrigation, and g...
Atossa Araxia Abrahamian writes about how Jean Ziegler has spent the past 60 years exposing how Switzerland enabled global wrongdoing.