Faith and art have coexisted peacefully, even amicably, throughout most of history. In our day, however, relations between the realm of religion and the realm of literature are uneasy at best. As our contributors here suggest, the fault may lie with both sides-in the deafness of most contemporary writers to the religious yearnings of the average person; and in the aggressive intolerance of some believers who have gone the way of fundamentalism.
Faith and art have coexisted peacefully, even amicably, throughout most of history. In our day, however, relations between the realm of religion and the realm of literature are uneasy at best. As our contributors here suggest, the fault may lie with both sides-in the deafness of most contemporary writers to the religious yearnings of the average person; and in the aggressive intolerance of some believers who have gone the way of fundamentalism.
National mythologies are based as much on features of landscape as on heroic individuals, ideals, and great events. Simon Schama here tells how the "discovery" of giant sequoias in the 1850s helped to confirm America's sense of manifest destiny "at a time when the Republic was suffering its most divisive crisis since the Revolution."
In August the world will solemnly mark the 50th anniversaries of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Their devastation in 1945 inaugurated an age fraught with doomsday anxieties: the fear of Armageddon, of uncontrolled proliferation, and, more recently, of nuclear terrorism. Yet even before the Cold War began to fade, many countries were quietly retreating from the nuclear temptation. Mitchell Reiss explains why - and what can be done to encourage the trend.
Theodore Roosevelt celebrated the "bully pulpit" as one of the grandest prerogatives of the presidency. But the pitfalls of serving as the nation's voice have contributed to the undoing of more than one of his successors.
We all derive different, private meanings from the music that delights us, but the recurrence of certain musical patterns in the works of great composers hints at meanings of a more universal character.
Long before cetaceans became objects of popular affection and scientific scrutiny, the author had his first and most memorable encounter with the killer whale.
SkaltISkalt Not
n the whole, the arrangement
wasn't bad. Sex you learned about
mostly on the streets, long before
you were caught off guard one day by a parentwho had found thecourage to be straight-faced about the mechanics and their ("Take my word for it") spiritual dimension. The details, such as they were, resembled what you already knew about as much as a stick figure re- sembles a Reubens.
And religion you learned about mostly in school (theory) and church (practice). Th...
James Q. Wilson, in PS: Political Science &Politics (Dec. 1994), American Political Science Association, 1527 New Hampshire Ave. N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036.
"Reinventing" the executive branch of the fed- era1 government so that it "works better and costs less," as Vice President A1 Gore's National Performance Review is supposed to do, is a very laudable goal, says political scientist Wilson, of them responsive, we expose them to access endless reporters, lawyers, committees,...