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In case you missed them, here are the essays Quillette readers valued most this year.

As the new Michael Jackson biopic broke box-office records, Andrew Hammel went back through the evidence the film leaves out: the police searches at Neverland, the accusers’ accounts, and the 2005 acquittal. It’s one of the most thorough examinations of the case you’ll find.

Never Neverland: What the Michael Jackson Biopic Leaves Out

The new Michael Jackson biopic and the campaign to whitewash the King of Pop’s reputation.

QuilletteAndrew Hammel

Philosopher Maarten Boudry once rolled his eyes at proposals to “decolonise” the curriculum. Then came 7 October, and the celebrations on campus.

What Did You Think Decolonisation Meant?

Decolonisation theory operates as a rigid, Manichaean ideology that neatly divides the world into evil perpetrators and innocent victims.

QuilletteMaarten Boudry

Also worth your time

Andrew Hammel on the Jason Arday fiasco at Cambridge, and why it points to deeper problems of cowardice and conformism in academia.

Jason Arday: The Scandal Academia Enabled

The Jason Arday fiasco is a reminder why academia has developed a reputation for cowardice, careerism, and conformism in recent years.

QuilletteAndrew Hammel

Danielle Haas, a former Human Rights Watch staffer, on Amnesty International’s clash with J.K. Rowling, and why its “anti-rights” briefing was no rogue document.

Amnesty, Rowling, and NGO Accountability

Is this the reckoning that human-rights NGOs have long avoided?

QuilletteDanielle Haas

Robert Lynch on a discipline that stopped inquiring and started announcing its conclusions instead.

Carolyn Rouse Confirms Anthropology’s Critics

How a discipline lost interest in the people it was founded to understand.

QuilletteRobert Lynch

Sydney psychiatrist Tanveer Ahmed on why so many men who have quit work aren’t depressed but are demoralised.

Why So Many Men Have Quietly Given Up on Work

Men are quietly leaving the workforce—not for lack of jobs, but for lack of purpose.

QuilletteTanveer Ahmed

What happens when a public broadcaster tells its journalists not to report parts of its own survey.

The Data a Flemish TV Network Didn’t Want You to See

How I read a confidential memo on live television—and what it reveals about ideological bias.

QuilletteMaarten Boudry

Give it a listen

Quillette founder Claire Lehmann talks to entrepreneur and investor Misha Saul about his viral essay “Australia Is Sick,” and how the country squandered the advantages that made it rich, from immigration and net zero to the NDIS and regulatory overreach. Saul also explains why AI leaves him optimistic.