Skeptics always want to know why they should make such significant investments in design. Unfortunately, this is a difficult question to answer. Companies such as Nielsen that analyze marketing-mix investments do not account for design. The impact of design can span a variety of activities. And…

We all love Mad Men . (Don’t debate with me, Game of Thrones people, there can only be one Best Show Ever, and it clearly takes place at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce.) There is at least one character for each of us that attains the perfect combination of despicable, self-loathing, sexually deviant,…

Disunion follows the Civil War as it unfolded. A feeling of impending victory swept over the Union forces assembled in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, on the outskirts of the hamlet of Kernstown, on Sunday morning, March 23, 1862. Stonewall Jackson and his rebels would be whipped on their home turf in…

Disunion follows the Civil War as it unfolded. In late December 1861 Northern newspapers buzzed with rumors about a high-ranking Confederate officer who had committed suicide. Within days the victim was identified as Philip St. George Cocke, one of Virginia’s wealthiest and largest planters. Cocke,…

Disunion follows the Civil War as it unfolded. In the pantheon of Confederate commanders, the team of Robert E. Lee and his brilliant subordinate, Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson stands at the fore. The two had developed a mutual admiration while serving together in the Mexican War. Later, during the…

Disunion follows the Civil War as it unfolded. On Feb. 7, 1862, United States soldiers poured from surf boats onto Roanoke Island off of North Carolina’s eastern shore. Almost three hundred years earlier, Sir Walter Raleigh had dispatched colonists to that same island to establish a famously…

Disunion follows the Civil War as it unfolded. On a frosty day in late February 1862, at a little past noon, 400 people stood solemnly within the stone-walled courtyard of the Tombs, New York City’s jail. Eighty were marines, dressed in Union blue and standing rigidly at attention with loaded rifles…

Disunion follows the Civil War as it unfolded. On Feb. 15, 1862, the Confederate Congress approved a second lieutenant’s appointment for Jim Parker, a thickset, redheaded West Pointer with eyes that matched the color of his uniform. Strangely, it was Parker’s second stint at this rank. The first…

Disunion follows the Civil War as it unfolded. While Arizona’s single brief Civil War skirmish at Picacho Peak between the Texas-led Confederates and Union soldiers from California, on April 15, 1862, is annually taken out of mothballs for celebration, perhaps the state’s most enduring story of…

Routinely putting in extra hours at the office can put a strain on your social life. But can too much overtime cause depression?

The miracle of the great Zanesville zoo escape—which began last fall when a depressed, desperate man named Terry Thompson set free his vast collection of exotic animals—was that not a single innocent person was hurt. The incident made global news. It also thrust into daylight, if only for a…

With a nod to Tom Chambers’s post on five things to know before dating a journalist, here’s a similar guide to embarking on a relationship with a PR professional. Here are four things you should know about dating a PR

"What time do you want me to start work?" That's the question a new hire recently asked me. She looked a little startled by my reply. "I don't care."

On his first tour of duty in Afghanistan, Sam Brown was set on fire by an improvised explosive device. He survived, only to find himself, like thousands of other vets, doomed to a post-traumatic life of unbearable pain. Even hallucinogen-grade drugs offered little relief, and little hope. Then…

Disunion follows the Civil War as it unfolded. Capt. Henry Huse stood atop the star-shaped Fort Independence on a January day in 1862 and delighted in the magnificent view of Boston Harbor. It eclipsed anything he had seen back in the New Hampshire hamlet of Barnstead, where the 22-year-old…

Disunion follows the Civil War as it unfolded. Alongside the great armies mobilizing for war across the North in the fall of 1861, another organization, which would likewise have a great impact on the lives of American soldiers, got started in New York City. At a meeting of the city’s Y.M.C.A.…

Disunion follows the Civil War as it unfolded. As the morning fog of Jan. 19, 1862, gave way to the haze of musket and cannon smoke around Logan’s Crossroads, Ky., Confederate Gen. Felix Zollicoffer gingerly approached a regiment of Kentuckians. After imploring the Kentuckians not to shoot one of…

Years ago, Charlie, a highly respected orthopedist and a mentor of mine, found a lump in his stomach. He had a surgeon explore the area, and the diagnosis was pancreatic cancer. This surgeon was one of the best in the country. He had even invented a new procedure for this exact cancer that could…

Google. It’s one of the most common household words in modern society, and yet for a company that is used by most of us essentially as an algorithm, it tends to trigger a highly emotional response when overheard. It’s a dream job for college students nearing graduation, a highly coveted invitation…

Adam Ferguson, Afghanistan, 2009 Adam Ferguson: 'As a photographer, you feel helpless. Around you are medics, security personnel, people doing good work. It can be agonisingly painful to think that all you're doing is taking pictures.' Photograph: Adam Ferguson/VII Network I was one of the first on…

Disunion follows the Civil War as it unfolded. As 1862 dawned, the Union’s military fortunes appeared decidedly grim. Defeats like those suffered at Bull Run and Ball’s Bluff, as well as the growing realization that Gen. George McClellan was at best a reluctant warrior, gave rise to a growing claque…

Disunion follows the Civil War as it unfolded. Americans remember the Civil War for the carnage it caused, the people it liberated and the nation it rebuilt. Rarely do they remember it for the comedy it inspired. Yet many considered the early 1860s to be “the age of practical joking.” Throughout the…

the dominant mode in American tennis was what we might call the brash style, a flamboyant individualism that cut against the refined grain of the sport.

They shot at cops! The sister’s a stripper! It’s like Bonnie and Clyde! These were the irresistible beats of the media’s giddy coverage of one of the most bizarre crime sprees in recent memory. Kathy Dobie retraces the eight-day, fifteen-state, AK-47-inclusive journey of Ryan, Dylan, and Lee-Grace…

Diary Mohammed el Gorani and Jérôme Tubiana We met every afternoon for two weeks in N’Djamena. After the midday prayer, I would pick him up in a taxi at the shop he hoped to turn into a laundry. We ate fish and rice in my hotel room – he would have been recognised outside – and he just talked,…

THE Cover Story Amy Schumer Is Rich, Famous, and in Love: Can She Keep Her Edge? With her long-simmering superstardom here, America’s hottest comedienne is navigating fame—and boundaries—for herself. death march to cleveland Kasich and Cruz Join Forces to Take Down Trump The push for a contested…

ONDON -- After the torture of eight disconnected hours, the plane lands at Heathrow. We're still rolling when I turn on both phones, hitting refresh on my email, burning at the twirling wheel. Effing phone and its thinking. The messages finally arrive but won't load. I curse all the way to passport…

Disunion follows the Civil War as it unfolded. Abraham Lincoln is remembered by some as a thoughtful, often cautious leader. But in late 1861 he began to develop a plan that, even during that most unusual of times, was audacious in the extreme: the federal government would buy out Delaware’s entire…

New Age adherents of the 2012 prophecy, which has created an Internet frenzy and a small publishing industry, believe the end of the ancient Mayan calendar, on December 21, 2012, will coincide with the end of the world. Hal Lindsey and Carole C. Carlson’s The Late Great Planet Earth (1970),…

[Image: Flickr user Jeffrey ] Fast Company wants you to have your best year yet in 2012; click for more advice and tips on how to work smarter, manage your career, and lead a more meaningful life. How many of us have dreamed of leaving our current jobs to do what we really want to do? And yet, not…

Disunion follows the Civil War as it unfolded. Camp Wood, near Munfordville, Ky., Dec. 31, 1861 Near a half-ruined railroad bridge along the Green River, a fresh Union Army recruit stood on lonely sentry duty as the year 1861 passed into history. Pvt. Lyman Widney, a 19-year-old farmer’s son, wrote…

Sgt. Brian Keith boarded the plane home feeling a strange dread. His wife wanted a divorce and had moved away, taking their son and most of their bank account with her. At the end of his flight lay an empty apartment and the blank slate of a new life. “A lot of people were excited about coming…