Foreword by Robert Atwan
Introduction: To Open a Millennium by Stephen Jay Gould

Jacques Barzun. The Tenth Muse
from Harper’s Magazine

Rudolph Chelminski. Turning Point
from Smithsonian

Bernard Cooper. Winner Take Nothing
from GQ

Nicholas Delbanco. The Countess of Stanlein Restored
from Harper’s Magazine

Barbara Ehrenreich. Welcome to Cancerland
from Harper’s Magazine

Jonathan Franzen. My Father’s Brain
from The New Yorker

Atul Gawande. Final Cut
from The New Yorker

David Halberstam. Who We Are
from Vanity Fair

Christopher Hitchens. For Patriot Dreams
from Vanity Fair

Sebastian Junger. The Lion in Winter
from National Geographic Adventure

Amy Kolen. Fire
from The Massachusetts Review

Andrew Levy. The Anti-Jefferson
from The American Scholar

Adam Mayblum. The Price We Pay
from DoubleTake

Louis Menand. College: The End of the Golden Age
from The New York Review of Books

Cullen Murphy. Out of the Ordinary
from The Atlantic Monthly

Danielle Ofri. Merced
from The Missouri Review

Darryl Pinckney. Busted in New York
from The New Yorker

Richard Price and Anne Hudson-Price. Word on the Street
from The New York Times Magazine

Joe Queenan. Matriculation Fixation
from The New York Times Education Life

John Sack. Inside the Bunker
from Esquire

Mario Vargas Llosa. Why Literature?
from The New Republic

Gore Vidal. The Meaning of Timothy McVeigh
from Vanity Fair

Garry Wills. The Dramaturgy of Death
from The New York Review of Books

Penny Wolfson. Moonrise
from The Atlantic Monthly

Biographical Notes
Notable Essays of 2001