Matthew Power (1974-2014) was a contributing editor at Harper’s and VQR. His essays and reporting have also appeared in Discover, GQ, Men’s Journal, National Geographic Adventure, and Slate.
The 4,086-square-mile Salar de Uyuni is remote, flat as a billiard table, twice the size of Rhode Island—and it hides a great treasure. The billions of gallons of mineral-rich brine just below its crystalline surface hold perhaps half the...
A container ship the size of a prone Chrysler Building slides silently past me, at eye level, close enough to touch. Multicolored intermodal containers, the red blood cells of global commerce, are stacked a hundred feet high on the deck...
Brad always went farther afield than the rest of us. He was restless, nomadic, and would disappear from the city for months at a time. He had friends all over the country and the world, made a point of knowing everyone everywhere, and...