the needs of the day, not simply the implacable advance of technical knowledge. The man who took up the challenge to American pride was George Washington Gale Ferris, a Pittsburgh engineer. Inspiration, he later said, struck him at a dinner in a Chicago chophouse: "I would build a wheel, a monster."
Ferris's wheel was not entirely original. An English traveler wrote of seeing a "pleasure wheel" in 17th-century Bulgaria, and there were pleasure wheels some 50 feet in diameter...
modem biographical standards, for verifying their authenticity." Often, Boswell sought to "im-prove" Johnson's remarks. One of Johnson's best-known "sayings," as reported Boswell in the Life, is, "When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life, for there is everything in London that life can afford." But according to BoswelTs own journal, all that Johnson actually said was, "You find no man wishes to leave it."
Boswell did not trouble himself to...
Robert Alter, in Commentary (July1993),American Jewish Committee, 165 East 56th St., New York, N.Y. 10022.
The Merchant of Venice may not be Shakespeare's best comedy, but historically it has been his most popular. Not only has it been produced thou- sands of times on both sides of the Atlantic, it was the first of Shakespeare's plays to be per- formed in Armenian, the first entirely in Chinese, and the first a Japanese Kabuki troupe. Why all this should be is a bit of a puzzle. There are livelier...
January 1,1993, anda common monetary policy, a single European currency, and an independent central bank were to be es- tablished the end of the decade. Today, how- ever, it isdear that that schedule willnot be kept. Europe's borders are now largely open, but the rest of the ambitious project is shrouded in doubt.
Monnet's heirs reached the depths of de- spond in early August when EC finance rninis- ters took a giant step away from monetary union. Seeking to stop frenzied selling of the French...
and for lawyers and bureau- crats." Few Europeans really grasp how the EC works, Hoffmann points out, and there is a wide- spread complaint about a "democratic deficit." The Council of Ministers is th'e Community's chief lawmaker, while the popularly elected Eu- ropean Parliament has very limited powers. Regulations are drafted the European Com- mission, which is not accountable to the parlia- ment. The EC Commission's president, currently Jacques Delors of France, is chosen by the...
the Kaiser Foundation's Comrnis- sion on the Future of Medicaid indicates otherwise.
Between 1988 and '91, Medic- aid enrollment increased from
"Cuba After the Cold War."
22.2 million to 27 million. But only half of the new beneficiaries were pregnant women or chil- dren, and the costs of covering them accounted for only about 11 percent of the total increase. The other new enrollees, such as families on welfare and the aged and disabled poor, accounted for nearly one-fourth of the t...
LET THE SEA MAKE A NOISE: A History of
the North Pacific from Magellan to MacArthur.
By WalferA . McDougall. Basic. 793 pp. $30
THE MORAL SENSE. By James Q. Wilson.
Free Press. 313 pp. $22.95
LISTENING TO PROZAC: A Psychiatrist
Explores Antidepressant Drugs and the
Remaking of the Self. By Peter D. Kramer.
Viking. 409 pp. $23
Ed. by Robert Blake
and Wm. Roger Louis. Norton. 581 pp. $35