By Richard F. Hamilton. Yale Univ. Press. 278 pp. $32.50
By David Bornstein. Simon & Schuster. 360 pp. $25
By Michael Oakeshott. Yale Univ. Press. 128 pp. $25
The decline of fatherhood is one of the most basic, unexpected, and extraordinary social trends of our time. Its dimensions can be captured in a single statistic: in just three decades, between 1960 and 1990, the percentage of children living apart from their biological fathers more than doubled, from 17 percent to 36 percent. By the turn of the century, nearly 50 percent of American children may be going to sleep each evening without being able to say good night to their dads.
Much of our contemporary debate over fatherhood is governed by the assumption that men can solve the fatherhood problem on their own. The organizers of last year’s Million Man March asked women to stay home, and the leaders of Promise Keepers and other grassroots fatherhood movements whose members gather with considerably less fanfare simply do not admit women.
In 1996, John Barth calmly and correctly explained why the novel would survive the coming of hypertext and other digital challenges.
Nowhere in the world has the dream of reason been pursued quite so vigorously as in the Kingdom of Sweden. Under Social Democratic leadership, this Scandinavian country became famous around the world for its humane "Middle Way." Swedes believed that their distinctive "Swedish model," with its massive welfare state, its near-full employment, and its lofty egalitarianism, provided at least a glimpse of what a rationally constructed utopia might be. In recent years, however, the Swedish model has developed serious problems, and Swedes have begun to ponder some profoundly unsettling questions—questions about who they are and where they are headed. Our author takes us to post-utopian Sweden.
A century and a half after it began, the Mexican War has become a footnote to American history. When not forgotten, it has been misinterpreted—as America’s first imperial venture or its first unpopular war. The truth about the conflict, and its effect on the nation, is far more interesting.