This year marks 70 years since Queen Elizabeth ascended to the throne—her platinum jubilee. She has served in her official role alongside 14 British prime ministers, from Winston Churchill to Boris Johnson, and her reign spans 14 U.S. presidents and counting. Her image circulates as currency—actual currency and the Andy Warhol variety—and the length of her tenure is now an indelible part of her legacy. Who in this day and age holds the same job for seven decades? That said, her dominion has indisputably contracted since 1952; just last year Barbados threw off its affiliation with the crown, and in March a royal visit from the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge to Jamaica drew calls for reparations alongside a reaffirmation of the island’s 60 years of independence. Monarchist sentiment—or sentimentality—in England is sufficiently strong that Elizabeth II won’t be the last Windsor to sit on the throne. But with Charles in the wings and a grandson and great-grandson in line, she will be Great Britain’s last sovereign queen for a good long while—and given the shrinking royal footprint, possibly forever.
These themes emerge in our pages this month and will also shape our new podcast series called Dynasty, a delightful audio expression of our obsession with powerful families. The first season takes on the House of Windsor and is cohosted by contributing editor Katie Nicholl and staff writer Erin Vanderhoof, who also wrote stories for our cover package on the platinum jubilee and all it signifies. Subsequent seasons will tackle other notable and notorious clans and the ways they shape our world. In this issue, we interpret the idea of family both literally (see James Reginato’s chronicle of the fortunes and misfortunes of J. Paul Getty’s great-grandchildren) and loosely, as a way of thinking about the ties that bind. Tressie McMillan Cottom paints a vivid group portrait of a new vanguard of country singers in Nashville, for example, and James Pogue forays into the heart of darkness—excuse me, Orlando—with a rising group of culturally savvy conservative thinkers whose ideological intentions trace to Peter Thiel. And Michael Idov, one of Hollywood’s few bilingual English-Russian screenwriters, writes eloquently of giving up writing in Russian in the face of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. “I don’t know how to speak to a country that’s busy destroying its neighbor and itself,” he says, “so I won’t.”
— How Princess Diana’s Press Strategy Impacted William and Harry
— The Johnny Depp–Amber Heard Trial: How Did It Come to This?
— The Rich Are Rotting in the Mildewed Age
— Prince Andrew Really Just Cannot Seem to Stop Himself
— 11 New Books to Read This April
— Will Smith Banned From the Oscars for 10 Years After the Slap
— Susan Cain, Chief Introvert, Ventures Into the Sublime
— From the Archive: How Did Johnny Depp Find Himself in a Financial Hole?
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