Cover Story: An Anniversary Anthology
Selections from 1976 to 2000: The Pinto Chronicles; Alice Walker on Martin and Malcolm; the butchers of El Salvador; Kurt Vonnegut on Reagan’s snow job; ABC’s secret tobacco tapes; Hillary & Eleanor, and more

FEATURES

The First 25 Years by Adam Hochschild
In 1976, a group of San Francisco editors created a unique magazine. Some 200 issues, one IRS probe, and two decades of media consolidation later, Mother Jones endures — as do the values that inspired its founding.

Mother Jones: The Woman by Elliott J. Gorn
The story of how a famine-era Irish immigrant, schoolteacher, and seamstress created the legend of “Mother” Jones

Photography with Conviction
From Kansas to Cambodia: 25 years of dedicated photojournalism

Subsidies at Sea by Barry Yeoman
Why did Pennsylvania give a shipbuilding firm up to $2 million for every job it created in South Philadelphia? The answer lies in the battle that communities are waging to lure private business with public handouts.

An Alternative to Progress by Bill McKibben
Bangladesh has struggled to endure famine, floods, and political upheaval. Yet its rural villages may hold the key to a global question: Can traditional communities survive without World Bank-style development?

Reading, Writing and Revenue by Chuck Sudetic
Edison Schools Inc. insists that for-profit management can save public education — and officials nationwide have bought into the concept. But a growing number of educators say that Edison’s results don’t make the grade.

DEPARTMENTS

Backtalk
Readers sound off on advertisements for prescription drugs, donations to political campaigns, labor-inducing drugs, and other issues.

Outfront
Preying on Payday by Brendan I. Koerner
How national banks are teaming with storefront lenders to profit from high-interest loans to the poor
Counting Caribou by Tom Dunkel
The Bush-Cheney oil driling plan could endanger the Arctic’s largest caribou herd — and the people who depend on it.
Prescription for Controversy by Jeanne Lenzer
Do corporate donations to the American Heart Association influence its drug guidelines?
That Other Bush Boy by Michael Scherer
The president’s brother Neil hopes to profit from his family’s influence.
Treading on Liberia by David Goodman
Is Firestone paying for its faulty tires by shortchanging African workers?
Hellraiser: Preston J. Truman, atomic activist.

Power Plays by Christopher Hitchens
The United States reserves the right to ignore international treates — while insisting that everyone else play by the rules.

The Slant by Ian Frazier
Sure, you know that sometimes you’re just faking it. But you’re not the president of the United States.

The Commons by Sue Halpern
Trailer park residents are taking on landlords and bankers for a chance to put down some roots of their own.

Media Jones
— Interview — Louise Erdrich on cross-dressing the divine
— What should progressives stop worrying about right now?
Mother Jones, as seen on TV
Book, music, and film reviews