During the 1980s and 90s Harpers decayed badly from a journal of literature and opinion into a collection of short pieces and meaningless charts- sort of a journal for the literary pretentious with a short attention span. During the late 90s and the early part of this century, an effort was made to recreate the old Harpers.Gone now are the annoying fragments and pointless tables, but the quality of the writing is still variable. At its best, Harpers still trails far behind The Atlantic, and at its worst it's pitifully sophmoric. I'll try it again in a few more years.