Right out of college, I subscribed to Time magazine. Then I switched to Newsweek, whose columnists I liked slightly better (for a while I was getting both magazines.) Then came The Week, which is an ingenious invention - a brilliant summary of news from every other publication. It's beautifully laid out, and I still read it every week. I thought nothing could top it.
But I've been reading The Economist for three years now, and it's incredible. It has the same broad overview I can find in The Week, but it's the depth of coverage that's really spectacular. They must have correspondents in every country on earth. They report on all the mainstream stories, often with beautiful maps and graphs, but they'll also check in to say, San Salvador or Namibia every six months. The end result is reading at least one article on every country in the world in the span of a year.
And their articles are not just "President so-and-so was overthrown yesterday," but they'll actually tell you why. In just a few paragraphs they can summarize centuries of conflict and tell you the whole history of a region.
As a British magazine, they don't have the same church-state separation of news and editorial that we have. It means they actually give judgements, predictions and kudos in each article. The entire magazine appears to be written by one person, in one style. It's clever and filled with British wit. And their opinions are most often logical and agreeable. They have a reputation as a conservative magazine, but since they're European, that's still liberal by our standards, which means they're all-in-all middle-of-the-road. For example, they're (very) pro-free-trade and pro-business, but also pro-gay marriage and the environment.
The Economist is eye-opening. It expands your understanding of the world. If I had to survive with only one subscription, this would be it.
Reviewed September 2005