Customer Reviews
very good place to go for good journalism and short fiction 
2008-09-06
yeah , to be intellectually honest it has an agenda (it's difficult to find a balanced publication , if not impossible) , but there is too much to recommend for me not to cast a vote in favor .
The Sky is Falling 
2008-08-11
I used to read Harper's when I was a cynical 20-something. Now that I'm a somewhat less cynical 30-something, I just can't take the nearly hysterical atmosphere of gloom that pervades it. Life is grim for many around the world--always has been, always will. Wallowing in that grimness isn't in anyone's interest. Additionally, Harper's doesn't give voice to alternative political viewpoints--if they had their way, the editors would pack the courts, congress, and White House with liberals no matter the cost. This is a pluralist society and a magazine with the intellectual firepower of Harper's at its disposal should be strong enough to admit a range of views. Let the Harper's politburo have their funereal fun and read The New Yorker instead.
Not for flip-throughs 
2008-04-29
I frequently change magazine subscriptions just to see what's out there. Harpers, however, is a staple and for the simple reason that its writing is the best and the most varied in terms of length and subject matter. The real measure of its success is that I will wade into articles, memoirs and discussions, whatever the subject, and find I come away with something to talk about with friends instead of an hour spent with teaser paragraphs and no payoff. You know the feeling from coffee table mags where your eyes wind up tired and inside your head a dull tom-tom begins to beat . . . Harpers is a strange amalgam of irreverence, analysis, personal revelation and humor that puts it somewhere between the New York Review of Books, the New Yorker and Mother Jones--without the branding that the others cordon you with. Check it out and be sure to read the pieces not usually on your checklist. They'll take you places you haven't been.
Simply the Best 2008-03-11
Harper's is simply the best magazine around--thoughtful, critical, varied, insightful, challenging. It refuses to bow down and to pretend that the emperor is not naked, and yet it does not have a shrill or grating tone. In a world gone mad, it is the voice of reason and sanity, liberal in the finest and most liberating sense of the word. It is the only magazine I give as gifts--as of 2008, to seven different people, who have all come to love it, and to look forward to it, as much as I do.
Brain Food 2007-12-03
After reading my first issue of Harper's, I felt like I had just spent time with some very intelligent people ... excellent writing.
Still, It's a Good Magazine 2007-05-18
This magazine is edited to cover current social, political, cultural, scientific and economic issues. It also includes reporting, essays, fiction and memoirs by distinguished writers and promising new voices. It regularly features a statistical index, short cuts from various international texts and close analysis of current pieces of media.
No signs of a subscription! 
2007-02-19
On January 19th, I ordered this subscription as a gift for my niece. It is exactly a month later, and she has received no notification that she is going to receive the magazine. I was aware that the magazine would not arrive for several weeks, but in years past, notification has been sent out by magazines to inform recipients of the upcoming subscription. I give Harper's the benefit of the doubt when I give 3 stars... since I have yet to see any sign of a subscription.
Well written and interesting 2007-02-18
I don't know how they do it, but Harper's always seems to present me with tidbits of information that I wouldn't have gotten anywhere else. It seems like they must have an army of people digging through documents to come up with some of their content. I generally read it cover to cover within a few days of getting it. I think it's great.
A monthly break from pedestrian print journalism 2007-01-28
This magazine has been a terrific little treasure for at least 25 years.
I started reading it when they printed a piece on Bert Lance called
"The Money Vanishes" during the early Carter years. That piece along
with a Larry Kramer article during the early days of the HIV epidemic
are the two most compelling pieces of US journalism I have read in
forty years.
How any reviewer (below) can see Harper's as a "Left Oriented Magazine"
is a bright mystery to me. Any piece as scathing as "The Money Vanishes"
could NOT appear in a left-slanted magazine.
The reader should be ready for a hard look at topics from another,
challenging perspective. Along with The Economist and The Atlantic, this
is a magazine I would recommend as brain food for airplane trips and
waiting rooms etc. Bascially, Harper's is the other end of the comtinuum
from most of the print medium in the US now.
Good Magazine...if you receive it 2006-12-25
I ordered this magazine for a class I was taking last semester at college. I really did enjoy the articles I read in class. My only problem with the magazine was that I never received it. After calling Harpers about four times I got two magazines from the previous two months, but now I am still waiting for both last and this month's editions. Happy reading...if the magazine reaches you!
