How to Read The New Republic and The Nation Without a Subscription
The New Republic and The Nation both meter their websites. Here is how each paywall works and how to read their political essays and reporting in full for free.
Paywall behaviour last tested
The New Republic and The Nation are the two oldest political magazines in the United States, founded in 1914 and 1865 respectively, and both remain essential reading for the American left and centre-left. Both also meter their websites. If you have followed a link from social media to a New Republic column or a Nation investigation and hit the subscription screen, this guide explains how to read the whole thing.
How The New Republic paywall works
The New Republic uses a metered paywall. Readers without a subscription get a few free articles a month, tracked in a cookie, before the article body is replaced with a subscription offer. The magazine's full text is delivered in the page for search engines and hidden afterwards by a browser script, which is what allows a crawler-style reader to retrieve it. In our latest test, a 900-word New Republic column loaded in full through Skip the Paywall.
How The Nation paywall works
The Nation uses the same model with a slightly more generous allowance and a "subscriber-only" flag on some longer investigations. Again, the article text is present in the page and hidden by a script. A 1,500-word Nation feature on the Maine Senate race loaded completely in our test, including the author's biography at the end.
Read an article from either magazine in full
- Copy the article link from newrepublic.com or thenation.com.
- Paste it into the box on the home page and press Read Article.
- The article appears in a clean reader view with the headline, byline and full text.
What works and what does not
- Columns, features and reporting load completely on both sites.
- Podcasts return show notes only.
- The Nation's print archive, which goes back to 1865, is subscriber-only and not available through any reader.
- Newsletters are email-only.
Comparable magazines
For readers who follow these two, Foreign Policy and Foreign Affairs also load in full, as does Slate. The Atlantic does not: it blocks automated access. Harper's and the New York Review of Books were not in our latest test round. See metered versus hard paywalls for the full list of what does and does not work.
Other approaches
- Private windows reset the cookie-based meter on both sites.
- Library databases frequently include both magazines in full text. Ask a librarian.
Support the magazines if you read them often
Both magazines are non-profit or close to it and rely heavily on subscriptions and donations. Digital subscriptions are cheap, and both offer steep student discounts. If their reporting shapes your week, subscribe.
Try it with an article
Paste the URL of an article from The New Republic and read it in a clean reader view. Free, instant, no signup.
Frequently asked questions
How many free articles do The New Republic and The Nation allow?
Neither magazine publishes a fixed number, and both adjust their meters over time. Most readers see the subscription prompt after a handful of articles in a month.
Is The Nation archive available through the reader?
No. The archive of past issues back to 1865 is a subscriber-only product. Articles published on thenation.com in the normal way do work.
Does the reader work on The Atlantic?
No. The Atlantic blocks automated requests to its site, so the reader cannot fetch its articles. The New Republic, The Nation, Slate, Foreign Policy and Foreign Affairs all work.