The Bottom Line: Quite simply, National Geographic is America's smart magazine. Entertaining, beautiful, well-written. Pages don't turn much easier than this...
mrkstvns's Full Review: National Geographic Magazine
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all magazines are not created equal.
Ain't it the truth! You practically need hip wader boots to get through the slime and muck that lines the shelves of some newsstands these days. Fortunately for everyone, there are still a few magazines out there that are truly worth the time it takes to read them. National Geographic is unquestionably one of these. Head and shoulders above the pack, it's a magazine that's as beautiful to look at as it is fascinating to read.
Why? Pick a word that ends in "y" and you'll know Y. Photography. Cartography. History. Sociology. Take your pick --- this is a magazine that's smart, without ever coming off as an egghead magazine. It's a magazine that tells us who we are as humans, where we've been, and where we're going. And sometimes we even get a big pull-out map to show us!
Geography is essentially the study of place, but National Geographic has been showing us for years just how exciting place can be. Boys of earlier generations found the photos of naked tribal women to be somewhat titillating, but boys of the next generation might not be able to share that kind of joy since the world, she is a changing, and there's not too many backcountries left in the world where women still stroll around in the buff. That' a shame. (Not that the women were ever very sexy anyway, but hey, breasts are not something to be taken lightly!)
Maybe I'm getting too old, but I think some of the astronomy pieces that National Geographic has been running in recent years are even sexier than the old pics of even older Kuna women. All those photos taken by the Hubble Space Telescope are awesome things --- especially ones like those shown in the December 2003 issue that look back in time. Cool stuff, and with all the talk in the press recently about private commercial space travel becoming a reality, maybe space is the place that humanity will be in the next generation.
It's also very cool that National Geographic is showing people that the age of discovery isn't over yet. There are still amazing things in this world still waiting to be discovered. For a long time, it seemed like the only place that we ever heard about archaelogists exploring was Egypt. There are a lot of places in the world where old stuff and ancient civilizations could be unearthed, but Egypt kept grabbing the headlines.
It's done my heart glad over the last year or so to see so many National Geographic issues focusing not in other hemispheres, but right here in the American hemisphere, exploring all the untold wonders of Central and South America. Nowadays, National Geographic seems to have a fixation on the Maya, and that's okay with me, because I find the Maya to be totally fascinating. A culture that's wildly misunderstood, and I think there's a lot more potential for breakthroughs studying the ancient Maya than there is studying ancient Egyptians. The reason is simple: Egyptian culture was never totally "foreign" to western thought, culture, and science. Our own legal philosophies often trace their roots back to one Hammurabi and his code. Egyptian Queen Cleopatra is as much a part of western literary tradition as Ulysses or Macbeth. But Maya? Those dudes are radically outside any kind of western heritage. Nobody's ever seen a Shakespeare play about King Rabbit 2-30, and chances are, their God didn't create Heaven and Earth in 6 days, spending the 7th day resting in the Barcalounger with a cool Schneider Weisse.
And the dudes at National Geographic seem to understand the big potential in the Americas. And that's a good thing. (It makes for great reading too!)
Seems to me like lately, every issue or two has another cool story about the Maya. About whole cities being discovered under the dense jungle canopies in the Peten backcountry of the Guatemala-Mexico border, a region where jaguars still rule. Just a couple months ago, I saw a story about a ruined city being discovered, and inside, archaelogists unearthed the tomb of a king who reigned almost a thousand years ago. One story told of another site, where a frescoed ceiling told of the origins of humanity --- this was also in the fore-mentioned December '03 issue, and its titled "The Sistine Chapel of the Early Maya" --- truly fascinating stuff. Did you know that archaelogists are also exploring the cenotes of the Yucatan, looking for treasures and clues to ancient Mayas? They're finding that some of those underground rivers go hundreds of miles, and the scholars are frantic to get in there and see what treasures await because so many recreational scuba divers are already going into the cenotes (despite the obvious dangers), and we all know that Bubba from Alabama doesn't give two hoots about the significance of a 1,000 year old pot, as long as it would make a cool souvenir to bring home and let the kids break.
I like the depth of coverage of most articles, which are long enough to really present useful information with some authority and quality --- National Geographic isn't a stupid magazine with snippets of trivialized factoids, as all too many magazines have become for the 2-second attention span TV generation. In fact, some of the best issues are those that delve deeply into a topic, sometimes devoting almost an entire issue to one region or theme. Some of the most memorable deep issues that I've read have had articles focusing on the American Heartland or about the world running out of oil. Topics that reflect on change in America, and that portend perhaps even greater changes to come. They're relevant.
I also like the quality of coverage and the quality of writing. There's some creative writers doing articles for National Geographic. I love it when I come across an article that ties geography to the humanities, putting a real world face on a place. For example, one issue had an article about Argentina --- but it wasn't just another profile type article, it was specifically about dancing the tango. In another issue, an article about Mississippi wasn't dry or dull, because it pulled in a literary angle, focusing on the Mississippi that was Faulkner's world. Would Faulkner find the same kind of characters and passion in Mississippi today as he did when he penned his immortal tomes? I'll bet he would....
Much as I love National Geographic, there are a couple of things I could do without. First, I think there's more ads today than there used to be. I'm too lazy to do a statistical analysis today (it would cut into my Friday happy hour), but my purely seat-of-the-pants observation is more ads today. That's kind of a shame.
I appreciate that most of the ads are clustered together near the front of the magazine so that I can just jump to the first real article and read on from there, but it does irritate me that the editors put in little short snippets and newsy items in among the ads, like little crumbs of cookies scattered through the dark forest. Every now and then I see one that looks kind of interesting, and I wish I could read them all, but hell if I'm going to endure a forest of crummy ads to find 'em. I'll just keep jumpin' 1/3 of the way into the magazine to start reading. It's worked for me for years, hope the editors keep letting me do it so I don't have to cancel my subscription. That would be a terrible thing because overall, National Geographic is THE class act in American magazine publishing.
National Geographic is a true general audience magazine that's intelligent while at the same time entertaining. I look forward to every issue and read it from 1/3 in to back cover. I just hope that when the Hubble starts snapping photos of naked alien breasts that National Geographic gets the photos before Weekly World News. Not all school libraries have Weekly World News.
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