I am called a retail anthropologist, which makes me uncomfortable, especially around my colleagues in academia who have many more degrees than I do. For whatever combination of reasons, I’ve spent my adult life studying people while they shop. I watch how they move through stores and other commercial environments—restaurants, banks, fastfood joints, movie theaters, car dealerships, post offices, concert halls, malls.
Mental health care is rife with problems, but a recent government commission may have pointed the way towards some solutions.
The elusive anti-aging pill may already be in our medicine cabinet.
Exploring society's public and private failings, Erich Fischl has emerged as a leader of a return to figurative art.
The record industry could learn things from a successful young subway musician.
European elites generally are in favor of the EU, but the citizenry has reservations.
IN DENIAL: Historians, Communism and Espionage. By John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr. Encounter. 316 pp. $25.95
Reviewed by David J. Garrow
A new biography reveals the major themes of one of America's most important early writers: Sorrow and imprisonment, the terrible influence of family history and names, the past with its mysterious power over the present.
By David Foster Wallace. Norton.319 pp. $23.95
LIGHTNING MAN: The Accursed Life of Samuel F. B. Morse. By Kenneth Silverman. Knopf. 503 pp. $35