The Best of National Geographic
In this week's Back Issues, an ode to an iconic magazine
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In 1996, at a boot sale in St. Andrew’s, Scotland, I made one of the most consequential purchases of my life: several boxes filled with back issues of National Geographic. I’d been reading the magazine for as long as I could remember, but I trace my addiction back to this treasure trove—and then in the University library’s complete collection of back issues. The seeds of wanderlust duly planted, I spent the summer after college working at the Explorer’s Club in New York, followed by a year in Nepal and Bolivia. I’ve been a dedicated reader ever since.
So it was mildly devastating to learn that the National Geographic Society—owned by the Walt Disney Corporation—would stop selling the magazine on newsstands, and had done away with its entire roster of staff writers. I can only hope the owners do right by the magazine’s contributors—it won’t be able to meet its own Himalaya-high standards if not. If there’s any publication that deserves to be declared a national resource—and if there’s one I would encourage readers to subscribe to—it’s National Geographic. That’s not only because subscribers will continue to receive its monthly issues, but because it has a fantastically rich archive. And if you’ve been reading this newsletter, you know that I’m obsessed with magazine archives.
So this week I wanted to share a small taste of what the National Geographic archive has to offer. These are articles I first stumbled across while obsessing over my hoard of back issues in college, or doing research at the Explorers Club, or—more recently—getting lost in the digital archives. I’ve included early accounts of expeditions to Machu Picchu and Petra, cultural portraits of Timbuktu, Edinburgh, and Kathmandu, and glimpses into magical corners of the world I didn’t know existed until discovering them behind the magazine’s yellow-bordered cover. Maybe you’ll be tempted to subscribe yourself.
The Rock City of Petra
By Franklin E. Hoskins
May 1907
The highlands east of the Jordan River are strewn with ruins marking the rise and fall of successive civilizations—Semitic, Greek, Roman, Christian, Mohammedan, and Crusader. These ruins have been preserved for the modern explorer by the tides of nomadic life, which have swept up from the Arabian desert; but at the southern end of this no-man’s land, deep in the mountains of Edom, lies one of the most enchanting spots upon this earth—the Rock City of Petra. Its story carries us back to the dawn of human history. When Esau parted in anger from Jacob he went into Edom, then called Mount Seir, and after dispossessing the Horites became the progenitor of the Edomites, who remained the enemies of the children of Israel for a thousand years. These Edomites had princes, or kings, ruling in the Rock City while the children of Israel were still in Egyption bondage. Some of the darkest malediction of the Old Testament prophets are those aimed at Edom.
The City of Machu Picchu: Cradle of the Inca Empire
By Hiram Bingham
April, 1913
Apart from another hut in the vicinity and a few stone-faced terraces, there seemed to be little in the way of ruins, and I began to think that my time had been wasted. However, the view was magnificent, the water was delicious, and the shade of the hut most agreeable. So we rested a while and then went on to the top of the ridge. On all sides of us rose the magnificent peaks of the Urubamba Cañon, while 2,000 feet below us the rushing waters of the noisy river, making a great turn, defended three sides of the ridge, on top of which we were hunting for ruins. On the west side of the ridge the three Indian families who had chosen this eagle’s nest for their home had built a little path, part of which consisted of crude ladders of vines and tree trunks tied to the face of the precipice.
Presently we found ourselves in the midst of a tropical forest, beneath the shade of whose trees we could make out a maze of ancient walls, the ruins of buildings made of blocks of granite, some of which were beautifully fitted together in the most refined style of Inca architecture. A few rods farther along we came to a little open space, on which were two splendid temples or palaces. The superior character of the stone work, the presence of these splendid edifices, and of what appeared to be an unusually large number of finely constructed stone dwellings, led me to believe that Machu Picchu might prove to be the largest and most important ruin discovered in South America since the days of the Spanish conquest.
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