Every
weekend, Longform highlights its favorite international articles of the week.
For daily picks of new and classic nonfiction, check out Longform
or follow @longform on Twitter. Have an iPad? Download Longform's new app and read all of the latest in-depth stories from dozens of
magazines, including Foreign Policy.
The Man Who Killed Osama bin Laden ... Is
Screwed
Phil Bronstein • Esquire
A profile of the Navy Seal who killed Osama bin Laden and came home to a life in shambles.
"No one who fights for this country overseas should ever have to fight for a job," Barack Obama said last Veterans' Day, "or a roof over their head, or the care that they have earned when they come home."
But the Shooter will discover soon enough that when he leaves after sixteen years in the Navy, his body filled with scar tissue, arthritis, tendonitis, eye damage, and blown disks, here is what he gets from his employer and a grateful nation:
Nothing. No pension, no healthcare for his wife and kids, no protection for himself or his family.
Mario Tama/Getty Images
How Napoleon Chagnon Became Our Most
Controversial Anthropologist
Emily Eakin • New York Times
An anthropologist who made his name studying an isolated tribe is one of the most revered and reviled figures in his field.
In turning the Yanomami into the world's most famous "unacculturated" tribe, Chagnon also turned the romantic image of the "noble savage" on its head. Far from living in harmony with one another, the tribe engaged in frequent chest-pounding duels and deadly inter-village raids; violence or threat of violence dominated social life. The Yanomami, he declared, "live in a state of chronic warfare."
The phrase may be the most contested in the history of anthropology. Colleagues accused him of exaggerating the violence, even of imagining it -- a projection of his aggressive personality. As Chagnon's fame grew -- his book became a standard text in college courses -- so did the complaints.
LEO RAMIREZ/AFP/GettyImages

SUBJECTS:
















