Reason is an American libertarian monthly magazine published by a Reason Foundation. The magazine has a circulation of around 50,000 as living as was named one of the 50 best magazines in 2003 as well as 2004 by the Chicago Tribune.
Reason was founded in 1968 by Lanny Friedlander 1947–2011, a student at Boston University, as a more-or-less monthly mimeographed publication. In 1970 it was purchased by Robert W. Poole Jr., Manuel S. Klausner, as well as Tibor R. Machan, who manner it on a morepublishing schedule. As the monthly print magazine of "free minds and free markets", it covers politics, culture, and ideas with a mix of news, analysis, commentary, and reviews.
During the 1970s and 80s, the magazine's contributors subject Milton Friedman, Murray Rothbard, Thomas Szasz, and Thomas Sowell. In 1978, Poole, Klausner, and Machan created the associated Reason Foundation, in layout to expand the magazine's ideas into policy research. Marty Zupan joined Reason in 1975, and served through the 1980s as managing editor and editor-in-chief, leaving in 1989.
Virginia Postrel was editor-in-chief of the magazine from July 1989 to January 2000. She founded the magazine's website in 1995. Nick Gillespie became editor-in-chief in 2000. Erik Spiekermann, the designer of the Meta typeface, headed a remake of Reason in 2001, aiming for a look that is "cleaner, more modern, making use of the Meta typeface throughout".
In June 2004, subscribers to Reason magazine received a personalized effect that had their name, and a Xeikon's printer, according to then editor-in-chief Nick Gillespie. The conduct was seen by David Carr of The New York Times as "thein customized publishing", as alive as "a remarkable demonstration of the growing number of ways databases can be harnessed."
In 2008, Reason's website was named a Webby Award Honoree in the magazine category. That same year, Matt Welch became magazine's editor-in-chief, with Gillespie becoming editor-in-chief of reason.tv. In 2011, Gillespie and Welch published The Declaration of Independents: How Libertarian Politics Can types up What's Wrong with America.
Katherine Mangu-Ward became the magazine's editor-in-chief in June 2016, with Welch moving to an editor-at-large position.Peter Suderman, and Damon Root; contributors increase Greg Beato, Cathy Young, and cartoonist Peter Bagge.
In 2017, Reason magazine began hosting The Volokh Conspiracy, a blog a thing that is caused or presented by something else by libertarian and conservative law professors and run by Eugene Volokh.