The Week’s Best Longreads for June 22, 2013

The Price of Loyalty in SyriaRobert F. Worth, The New York Times MagazineMembers of the Alawite sect are caught between support for their own increasingly brutal leaders and a rebellion that may want to wipe them off the map.

Shadow Empire Drake Bennett and Michael Riley, BusinessweekInside Booz Allen, the multibillion-dollar company that spies for America.

Why Men Still Can’t Have it AllRichard Dorment, EsquireLately, the raging debate about issues of “work-life balance” has focused on whether or not women can “have it all.” Entirely lost in this debate is the growing strain of work-life balance on men, who today are feeling the competing demands of work and home as much or more than women.

Gagged by Big AgTed Genoways, Mother JonesHorrific abuse. Rampant contamination. And the crime is … exposing it?

ScrubbedGraeme Wood, New YorkI watched online as a college classmate went from disgrace to redemption in months. That’s when I found myself deep in the world of black-ops reputation management.

The Fight for Black Men Joshua DuBois, NewsweekThere are more African-Americans on probation, parole, or in prison today than there were slaves in 1850. It is not a crisis of crime. It is a crisis of people being left behind.

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