Jason Florio

In 2015, some 1 million migrants and refugees entered Europe as they fled instability in the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa. We felt compelled to try to reset the discussion of this crisis. This is how photographer Jason Florio’s portfolio of men, women, and children rescued from the Mediterranean Sea became the cover story of our Winter 2016 issue.

From under a rock in the highlands of Guinea, the Gambia emerges as one of the last untamed great rivers of Africa, winding through three countries on its way to the sea.

Aung San Suu Kyi and democracy may have pushed Burma from an isolated nation to potential partner to the rest of the world. But a trip deep inside the rebel camps tells a different story.

In spring 1985, with everyone’s expectant parents sweating and wedged into the auditorium chairs, it was my appointed task to kick off the school’s year-end performance by plinking out the opening strains of “We Are the World” on the music teacher’s Casio keyboard.

The Dadaab Refugee Camp and the Eastleigh neighborhood of Nairobi have seen an influx of hundreds of thousands of Somalis seeking a better life—but, as often as not, Kenya can offer them little.

After his two years of schooling, Eduardo took up the destiny ordained to the people of Pocoboch: growing yucca, squash, tomatoes, chiles, beans, and corn on small plots carved into the jungle. There may not have been much money, but for most of Eduardo’s lifetime, the corn made the town run. And then, simply, it did not.