 | |
| Categories | Culture,Literature,Politics,Current Events |
|---|---|
| Frequency | Quarterly |
| Circulation | 70,000 |
| First issue | 1976 |
| Final issue | Summer 2012 (print) |
| Company | Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars |
| Country | United States |
| Based in | Washington, D.C. |
| Language | English |
| Website | |
| ISSN | 0363-3276 |
| OCLC | 743409751 |
The Wilson Quarterly is amagazine published by theWoodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars inWashington, D.C. The magazine was founded in 1976 byPeter Braestrup andJames H. Billington. It is noted for its nonpartisan, non-ideological approach to current issues, with articles written from various perspectives.[1] Since summer 2012 it has been published online.
The first issue appeared in Autumn 1976 and established two of the magazine's signature features. Article "clusters" explore different facets of a subject, often with contrasting points of view. Early subjects ranged from theexploration of space to the newrevisionist history of theNew Deal, with writers includingWalt W. Rostow,Rem Koolhaas,George F. Kennan,John Updike,Carlos Fuentes, andMario Vargas Llosa.[2] The magazine also includes individual essays. TheWilson Quarterly's other signature feature is its "In Essence" section, which distills more than two dozen notable articles selected from hundreds of scholarly journals and specialized publications.[citation needed]
The magazine has gone through various format changes over the years, and between 1983 and 1990 it was published five times a year. It is also published quarterly.[2]
When Peter Braestrup left the magazine in 1989 to join Billington at theLibrary of Congress, he was succeeded by Jay Tolson, the magazine's literary editor. Tolson added a successful poetry section designed to introduce readers to significant poets of the past and present. The section was initially co-edited byJoseph Brodsky and poet laureateAnthony Hecht.
The magazine continued to focus on public questions, exemplified by the 1998 cluster "Is Everything Relative?" with articles byE. O. Wilson,Richard Rorty, andPaul R. Gross debating Wilson's claim inConsilience that all branches of knowledge will eventually be unified by a biological understanding of human life. In "The Second Coming of the American Small Town" in 1992,Andres Duany andElizabeth Plater-Zyberk offered an early in-depth look at theNew Urbanism and some of the animating ideas behindSmart Growth.
When Tolson left in 1999,Steven Lagerfeld was named editor. Lagerfeld had also worked under founding editor Peter Braestrup, joining the staff in 1981. In keeping with the times and the focus of the Woodrow Wilson Center, the magazine looked increasingly overseas, filling the period around the beginning of theIraq War with distinctive clusters on American empire, foreign writers' views of the United States, thehistory of Iraq, andWorld War IV. Other topics have ranged from the role of competition in American life to the ideas of traffic "guru"Hans Monderman. Recent writers have spanned the spectrum from conservative economist and bloggerTyler Cowen to liberal political thinkerBenjamin Barber. In 2006,The Wilson Quarterly received anUtne Reader Independent Press Award for General Excellence[3] and in 2011 for International Coverage.[4]
In 2012,The Wilson Quarterly changed to adigital-only publishing model.[2] The Summer 2012 (Volume 36, No. 3) issue was the last to be printed. Existing print subscribers were not transferred to the new digital subscription model, but rather were transferred toPacific Standard subscriptions.
In October 2014, under editor Zack Stanton, it was awarded "Best Relaunch" and "Best Overall Design" in the 2014 EPPY Awards given byEditor & Publisher magazine.[5] Richard Solash became the publication's editor in April 2017, and in October 2017, on the strength of its Arctic-themed issue, the publication was awarded an EPPY in the category of "Best Digital Magazine" (less than 1 million monthly visitors).
