That said, many of our favorite pieces didnt make the cut. Partly this was a matter of formal constraint: articles that unspool over many pages often have a magic that cannot be conveyed when cut down to a fraction of their original length. It is also the case that much of the work we are proudest ofour muckraking, reportage, and manifestosare necessarily bound to their specific time and place.
Indeed, we found that many great Monthly pieces have a curious half-life: they were groundbreaking when published, but also correct enough that conventional wisdom eventually caught up with them. Hence, many stories didnt make it into this anniversary issue through no fault of their own. To help fill the gaps, weve peppered the section with a sort of running scorecard for the magazine: a roundup of the things we nailed before everyone else, and the things we blew entirely.
We hope you enjoy reading these fruits of our archives as much as we enjoyed picking them. The Editors
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