Adam Parry and Richard M. Dorson, shocked his fellow scholars arguing that the Iliad and Odyssey had been orally composed and recited by wan- dering bards for several generations before being written down.
For at least a century, scholars of an- cient writing have split hairs over such questions as whether Homer was the sole author of his epics and whether the alphabet spread from a single source or was independently invented in several places. Among the notable works in this tradition are archaeolo-...
R.
Kent Weaver, in The Brookings Review (FallFor U~ZC/~Sam 1985), Brookings Institution, 1775
Massachussetts Ave. N.W., Washington, D.C.
20036.
Washington is not a model of efficiency.
With power divided among three governmental branches (including a bicameral legislature) and two heterogeneous political parties, Arneri- ca's regime is often criticized for being slow-moving and indecisive. Those who fault the US. system often cite England and Canada as examples of lean, smooth-running democracies....
comparison, says Weaver, Uncle Sam's regime-for all its faults- does not look so terrible.
"0WI BLILL/~S "How the Constitution Disappeared" Lino A Graglia, in Commentary (Feb 1986), 165 East 56th St, New York, N Y 10017
Addressing the American Bar Association last July, U.S. Attorney Gen- eral Edwin Meese said, among other things, that federal judges (espe- cially those on the Supreme Court) should interpret the U.S. Constitu- tion according to the intentions of its original framers.
Three...
David
C/lC/1-/.s"l?1a? P Glass, in Public OpznzonQuarterly (Winter 1985), Journalism Bldg , Columbia Univ , 116th St and Broadway, New York, N Y 10027
Everyone knows that personality plays a big role in determining who ends up in the Oval Office. But which voters are most swayed style over substance?
Contrary to popular assumptions, Glass, a demographics researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, asserts that college-educated vot- ers pay more attention to a candidate's "personal...
IODICALS
POLITICS & GOVERNMENT
those with less schooling.
Glass drew on data from the National Election Studies (NES) of the University of Michigan Center for Political Studies, which has been r&cording voters' "likes" and "dislikes" vis-a-vis presidential candidates since 1952. Among people with a college education, 55 percent of candidate evaluations through 1984 have involved such "personal attributes" as: "competence" (dependability, experience), &...
1992-for the first time in
U.S. history-Southerners and Westerners will together hold the major- ity in both the Electoral College and the House of Representatives.
FOREIGN POLICY & DEFENSE
'Why We Should Stop Studying the CubanManagement Missile Crisis" Eliot A. Cohen, in The Nu tional Interest (Winter 1985/86), 1627Vs. Strateg)) Connecticut Ave. N.W., Washington, D.C.
20009.
"There is no longer any such thing as strategy, only crisis management." So said Robert McNamara, the...
IODICALS
FOREIGN POLICY & DEFENSE
the science, or art, of crisis management.
But Cohen argues that the 1962 showdown offers little "historical guidance for American statesmen." When JFK stood "eyeball to eye- ball" with Khrushchev, the United States had nuclear superiority and, indeed, a "first strike" -capability. Future conflicts will occur under conditions of approximate nuclear parity. The strength of conventional forces will play a larger role, and America's...
George F. Kennan, in Foreign Affairs (Winter 1985/86), 58 East 68th St., New York, N.Y. 10024.
"Whenever one has- the agreeable sensation of being impressively moral, one probably is not."
Such is Washington's chief conundrum, observes Kennan, professor emeritus at Princeton's Institute for Advanced Studies. U.S. policy- makers, or those who would guide them, have consistently come up short in attempts to apply "morality" to foreign policy.
To begin with, notes Kennan, there...
these shortcomings, U.S. industries will continue to manufacture 'shoddy" products that cannot compete abroad.
The Europeans must contend with unemployment rates in the dou- ble digits (versus 6.8 percent in the United States). High wages and benefits-six-week vacations are the legal norm in Belgium-have made workers more expensive than machinery. As a result, European economies have generated no new jobs (on balance) since 1970.
Meanwhile, Japan has saturated its export markets. (Exports...
more than one-third, while their portion of the unionized jobs 3arely changed.
Surprisingly, the unions' often rigid seniority rules rarely barred the hiring and advancen~ent of qualified minority applicants. Indeed, judg- ing from the experienceoT black males, Leonard argues that unions in manufacturing open more doors for minorities than do federally man- dated affirmative action programs.
Looking Again "IS the Flat ax a Radical Idea)" James Gwertney and James Long, in The CatoJour...