Essays

Essays | Spring 1978
BACKGROUNDBOOKS

suffering each other to live as seems good to themselves than compel- ling each to live as seems good to the rest.
This doctrine, set forth by John Stuart Mill in ON LIBERTY (London, 1859; Norton, paper, 1975), was, as he put it, "anything but new." But it is from Mill's stout defense of the individual's rights versus those of society, and from his con- cise discussion of the range of issues in- volved, that the modern debate over the relationship between law and morality can be seen...

Essays | Spring 1978
Yugoslavia

Dusko Doder
Perhaps understandably, Yugoslavia's image in the West has never been sharply defined. Most Americans know little more about the country than that Marshal Tito fought the Nazis, defied Stalin, and in 1948 pulled out of the Soviet bloc. But even the Yugoslavs have a blurred conception of themselves. In ethnic terms, there is no such thing as a Yugoslav. There are Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Macedonians, and many other "nationalities." Although they share a common South (or Yugo)...

Essays | Spring 1978
A LAND WITHOUT A COUNTRY

Perhaps understandably, Yugoslavia's image in the West has never been sharply defined. Most Americans know little more about the country than that Marshal Tito fought the Nazis, defied Stalin, and in 1948 pulled out of the Soviet bloc. But even the Yugoslavs have a blurred conception of themselves. In ethnic terms, there is no such thing as a Yugoslav. There are Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Macedonians, and many other "nationalities." Although they share a common South (or Yugo) Slav origin,...

Essays | Spring 1978
TITOISM AND BEYOND

's significance now? What will it be after Tito? Conventional answers usually point to the country's anomalous international position-neither Eastern nor West- ern, neither capitalist nor (in the Soviet sense) communist, neither neutral nor satellite. But these are descriptive cliches, not answers.
A real analysis of Yugoslavia's importance must focus on more tangible factors: on its geographical position, its volatile ethnic situation, its much-touted internal system of "self- management,"...

Essays | Spring 1978
BACKGROUND BOOKS

. The vitality of its people and the primi- tive countryside captured her imagina- tion. She went on to immerse herself in the research for BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON: A Journey Through Yugoslavia (Viking, 1941). Her 1,180-page book remained in print for 33 years and is still available in most libraries. It may be the best book ever written about Yugo- slavia.
Dame Rebecca's rich, old-fashioned mixture of travelogue, cultural history, and political reportage builds slowly but once begun is hard...

Essays | Spring 1978
Reconstruction 1865-1877

Armstead L. Robinson
The first Reconstruction was one of the most critical and turbulent episodes in the American experience. Few periods in the nation's history have produced greater controversy or left a greater legacy of unresolved social issues to afflict future gener- ations.
The postwar period-from General Robert E. Lee's surren- der at Appomattox in April 1865 through President Rutherford
B. Hayes's inauguration in March 1877-was marked bitter partisan politics. In essence, the recurring...

Essays | Spring 1978
THE POLITICS OF RECONSTRUCTION

The first Reconstruction was one of the most critical and turbulent episodes in the American experience. Few periods in the nation's history have produced greater controversy or left a greater legacy of unresolved social issues to afflict future gener- ations.
The postwar period-from General Robert E. Lee's surren- der at Appomattox in April 1865 through President Rutherford
B. Hayes's inauguration in March 1877-was marked by bitter partisan politics. In essence, the recurring question was how...

Essays | Winter 1978
WORDS OF HUMOR

DS OF HUMOR

A few years before he won the 1976 Nobel Prize for Litera- ture, Saul Bellow was having a hard time of it as a guest at Northern Illinois University in De Kalb. The two English De- partment professors who were supposed to meet him for dinner hadn't shown up, so he stood by himself in the student union, watching a rerun of "Lost in Space" on the lounge TV while several hundred students milled around, wondering who he was. Two hours later, across town, a couple of graduate stu...

Essays | Winter 1978
TO "MAKE IT NEW": THE AMERICAN NOVEL SINCE 1945

Ever since T. S. Eliot made his famous statement in 1923 that "the novel ended with Flaubert and with James," novelists have frequently been put on the defensive. In 1957, literary critic and novelist Granville Hicks invited 10 American writers to con- tribute to a collection of essays entitled The Living Novel, with a view to asserting the continuing vitality and importance of their craft. To give a boost to their argument, Hicks declared in his Foreword: "There is no substitute...

Essays | Winter 1978
PARANOIA, ENERGY, AND DISPLACEMENT

"What's your idea of who runs things?"
The words are from Saul Bellow's The Victim (1947), but the question is one that in many different forms runs through Amer- ican fiction of the last 30 years.
One of the most important writers who has endeavored to give some sort of fictional outline and metaphorical definition to power and its modes of operation is Norman Mailer. This has taken him from actual political conventions and demonstrations to the technology of moon rockets, the significance...

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