Submersion Journalism

Fifteen sparkling works of inside-out reportage--Harper'sown house brand of "Submersion Journalism"--an unapologetically aggressive approach to reporting in an age of lies. "A dazzling intellectual immersion....Consistently challenging, even demanding, Harper's power is in its ability to cause sometimes subtle, sometimes seismic shifts in a reader's world view."--National Magazine Award citation for General Excellence, 2006 Over the past several years,Harper's Magazinehas fostered an exciting brand of journalism, participatory, sometimes even undercover, in approach. The magazine's correspondents have infiltrated the Republican machine, from its lowliest canvassing operation to its corporate and evangelical elite, and they have posed as shady clients for sleazy blue-chip lobbying firms. They have shot machine guns, lounged in Vegas brothels, and peered into secret tunnels in Mexicali. They have terrorized art museums and touched off worldwide fads. Submersion Journalismcollects the best of this reportage--by celebrated authors (William T. Vollmann, Barbara Ehrenreich) and fresh new voices (Wells Tower, Jake Silverstein) alike--in a book that serves not just as a collection of striking stories but also as a proclamation in favor of truth-telling instead of managed "news" and PR spin. The book is a defense of the radically first-person dispatch, filed from exactly those points of view where a reporter is not supposed to be. With articles by Charles Bowden, Adam Davidson, Barbara Ehrenreich, Steve Featherstone, Kristoffer A. Garin, Gary Greenberg, Jay Kirk, Willem Marx, Morgan Meis, Jeff Sharlet, Jake Silverstein, Ken Silverstein, Wells Tower, William T. Vollmann, Bill Wasik