NYT Magazine: “How the Arab World came apart”: In the longest story it has ever run, occupying a full magazine issue in print, the New York Times Magazine has published an in-depth Scott Anderson piece on the events in the region since the Iraqi invasion titled Fractured Lands: How the Arab World Came Apart through the narratives of six characters, from long-time Egyptian activist Laila Soueif to Iraqi Khulood al-Zaidi. Accompanied with extensive, stunning portfolios of Italian-born photographer Paolo Pellegrin from Tripoli to Damascus, the five-part saga is truly — as editor in chief Jake Silverstein calls it — “unprecedented…[offering] one of the most clear-eyed, powerful and human explanations of what has gone wrong in this region.” The 40,000-word essay will rub you the wrong way at times, but that doesn’t mean it’s not compelling storytelling — or that it doesn’t raise issues we might do well to think of. Bonus: There’s no advertisements here.