Christmas Specials | Cereal killer

The life-giving, death-dealing power of corn

Maize fed ancient civilisations, then wiped out 100,000 American Southerners. What went wrong?

A woman standing in a cornfield carrying a bunch of corn under her arm
Illustration: Adams Carvalho
|THE CAROLINAS

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This article appeared in the Christmas Specials section of the print edition under the headline “The life-giving, death-dealing grain”

From the December 23rd 2023 edition

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Rosemont

Inside the last true political machine in America

What a town is like when one family runs everything

Lion at Steve Martin's working wildlife.

AI is stalking the last lions of Hollywood

The first actors to lose their jobs to artificial intelligence are four-legged


The truth about the passenger jet Putin’s men shot down

Investigating MH17, the crime that presaged the war in Ukraine


Meet the boffins and buccaneers drilling for hydrogen

The search is on for a clean fuel that could one day replace oil

The best sailors in the world

Why the vaka, vehicle for the extraordinary story of the peopling of Oceania, is enjoying a revival

Oceania’s wayfinding skills

The art of getting a vessel and its occupants from one place on a vast ocean to another