Two Hundred Years to Flatten the Curve
How generations of meddlesome public health campaigns changed everyday life — and made life twice as long as it used to be
Charles C. Mann
Charles C. Mann is a science journalist and the author of the bestsellers 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus (Alfred A. Knopf, 2005) and 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created (Alfred A. Knopf, 2011), as well as The Wizard and the Prophet: Two Remarkable Scientists and Their Dueling Visions to Shape Tomorrow’s World (Alfred A. Knopf, 2018).
In The New Atlantis
Why We Are Better Off Than a Century Ago
Our ancestors built grand public systems to conquer hunger, thirst, darkness, and squalor. That progress can be lost if we forget it.
Essay | Summer 2025
What Keeps the Lights On
If you think the power system must run itself by now, you’re wrong. Behind every nicely toasted bagel is a vast network of generators, transformers, computers, wires — and, yes, people in backrooms sweating to make sure the juice flows exactly where, and when, it needs to go. What could possibly go wrong?
Essay | Spring 2025
A Spring in Every Kitchen
There is so little fresh surface water on Earth that if you collected it all into a ball, it would barely reach across New York City. Running water is a miracle — but the technology that brings it to us and takes the waste away is actually thousands of years old. The only barrier to staying hydrated today is political will.
Essay | Winter 2025
We Live Like Royalty and Don’t Know It
Introducing “How the System Works,” a series on the hidden mechanisms that support modern life
Essay | Winter 2025
Breakfast for Eight Billion
Fertilization, irrigation, genetics: the three practices that let us feed the whole world for the first time in history