Best New Yorker Articles of 2019

Patrick Radden Keefe on how Mark Burnett, who produced “The Apprentice,” mythologized Donald Trump as the ultimate business titan, paving Trump’s way to the Presidency.

Jake Halpern on the skilled climber and thief Vjeran Tomic, whom the French press referred to as Spider-Man and who has described robbery as an act of imagination.

As Beijing chips away at the territory’s freedoms, the Cantopop singer has become its emblematic figure, Jiayang Fan writes.

Robert A. Caro writes about life on a Presidential paper trail.

Carolyn Kormann writes about whether a controversial young entrepreneur can rid the ocean of plastic trash.

Fiction by T. Coraghessan Boyle: “She’s smiling as he comes up to the car, and he’s smiling, too, and now he’s reaching for the door handle . . . but the door seems to be locked, and she’s fumbling for the release.”

After witnessing a bombing in Iraq, the Army Reserves veteran and newspaper columnist decided to work through her P.T.S.D. in the fields, Ian Frazier writes.

The opioid epidemic and other public-health emergencies are being aggravated by failings in the criminal-justice system, Steve Coll writes.

Jane Mayer on Fox News’ transition from partisanship to propaganda.

D. T. Max on Paul and Alex Gemignani, a father-and-son conductor-singer duo, who kibbitz about their long-running engagement with the composer in “the house that ‘Gypsy’ built.”

The U.K. is in a panic over voters’ decision to withdraw from the E.U. But the pugnacious millionaire whose donations—and Trumpian scare tactics—helped sway Britons has no regrets, Ed Caesar writes.

Peter Hessler on a gay Egyptian who left his homeland.

In the mass-shooting era, civilians must help one another in a crisis and keep victims from bleeding to death, Paige Williams writes.

“Fosse/Verdon” and “Documentary Now!” parse the gender politics of artistic mastery and the difference between doormat and muse, Emily Nussbaum writes.

Ben Taub reports on Mohamedou Salahi, whom Guantánamo’s leadership considered to be its highest-value detainee but whose guard suspected otherwise.

In the tourist-clogged city, some locals see the service as a pestilence, Rebecca Mead writes.

Dexter Filkins on Trump’s national-security adviser’s attempts to sell the isolationist President on military force.

Ariel Levy on a fiercely debated program of land reform that could address racial injustice—or cause chaos.

The roots musician is inspired by the evolving legacy of the black string band, John Jeremiah Sullivan writes.

Ed Caesar on a young Englishman who got mixed up in a white-supremacist movement and then learned of a plot to kill a politician.

Alex Ross on Antonio Salieri, who was falsely cast as Mozart’s murderer and music’s sorest loser but is now getting a fresh hearing.

At first glance, frontier towns near the U.S.-Mexico border and along common migration corridors seem oblivious both of history and of the current political reality, Valeria Luiselli writes.

Sam Knight on Boris Johnson, who is expected to be Britain’s next Prime Minister and makes people in power appear ridiculous.

France’s young President is now Europe’s most forceful progressive, but violence at home and the success of right-wing parties throughout the Continent threaten his ambitions, Lauren Collins writes.

Once the bright young hope of the Latin-American left, Alan García was caught up in an epic corruption investigation, Daniel Alarcón writes.

Lizzie Presser on why so many black families are losing their property.

Jane Mayer takes a close look at the accusations against the former senator.

Tyler Foggatt on the late Supreme Court Justice’s belief that the Bard’s works were actually written by Edward de Vere, the seventeenth Earl of Oxford.

As the 2020 elections approach, Abrams is leading the battle against voter suppression, Jelani Cobb writes.

Andrew Marantz on the Esalen Institute, where Big Tech goes to ask deep questions.

As public-health officials confront the largest outbreak in the U.S. in decades, they’ve been fighting as much against dangerous ideas as they have against the disease, Nick Paumgarten writes.

Rebecca Mead on “The Inheritance,” which opens soon on Broadway and reimagines E. M. Forster’s novel as a lovingly wry portrait of New York’s gay community.

Personal History by Zuzana Justman: What is most striking to me today about the diary I kept in the camp, seventy-five years ago, is what I left out.

The world’s largest monument is decades in the making and more than a little controversial, Brooke Jarvis writes.

Eating meat creates huge environmental costs. Impossible Foods thinks it has a solution, Tad Friend writes.

Police departments have become more attentive to officers’ use of excessive force on the job, but that concern rarely extends to the home, Rachel Aviv writes.

Alexis Okeowo reports on an abortion fund in Georgia that is responding to restrictive legislation with a familial kind of care.

Politicians want to rein in the retail giant. But Jeff Bezos, the master of cutthroat capitalism, is ready to fight back, Charles Duhigg writes.

Michael Schulman on why so many directors want to work with Hollywood’s most unconventional lead.

Anthony Lane reviews Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman,” which stars Robert De Niro and Al Pacino and slows the passage of time.

A hundred years ago, the Palmer Raids imperilled thousands of immigrants. Then a wily official got in the way.

She’s not a liberal icon like Ruth Bader Ginsburg, but, through her powers of persuasion, she’s the key Justice holding back the Court’s rightward shift, Margaret Talbot writes.

No diet has been more obsessively studied, more fiercely controlled, or more anxiously stage-managed than baby food. Yet we still get it wrong, Burkhard Bilger writes.

Jennifer Gonnerman on a group of volunteers who are helping incarcerated people negotiate a system that is all but broken.

Dexter Filkins on how the Prime Minister’s Hindu-nationalist government has cast two hundred million Muslims as internal enemies.

Joshua Yaffa on how the television producer Konstantin Ernst went from discerning auteur to Putin’s unofficial minister of propaganda.

Adam Entous on how the efforts of Yuriy Lutsenko and Rudy Giuliani to smear Joe Biden led to a Presidential crisis.

The cartoonist has created a universe of spidery lines and nervous spaces, turning anxious truth-telling into an authoritative art, Adam Gopnik writes.