The American Novel
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Thomas W. Kremm, in Journal of In-terdisciplinary History (Summer 1977),
28 Carleton St.,Cambridge, Mass. 02142
Historians have long believed that Abraham Lincoln owed his election as President in 1860 to the votes of the foreign-born. Naturalized citi- zens-particularly German-Americans who had taken part in the middle-class uprisings of Europe in 1848-shared a hostility toward both slavery and the overwhelming influence of the South in Congress. They therefore voted in solid blocs for the Republican...
Philip F. Gura, in The New England Quar- terly (Sept. 1977), Hubbard Hall, Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Me. 0401 1
To many 17th-century New Englanders, William Phips (1651-95) epitomized what a good governor should not be. But preacher Cotton Mather found an overriding virtue in Phips's checkered career: his "love for his country ."
Gura, a professor of English at the University of Colorado, finds the appeal to patriotism in Mather's Life of Phips (1697) a fateful updating of the Puritans'...
Philip F. Gura, in The New England Quar- terly (Sept. 1977), Hubbard Hall, Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Me. 0401 1
To many 17th-century New Englanders, William Phips (1651-95) epitomized what a good governor should not be. But preacher Cotton Mather found an overriding virtue in Phips's checkered career: his "love for his country ."
Gura, a professor of English at the University of Colorado, finds the appeal to patriotism in Mather's Life of Phips (1697) a fateful updating of the Puritans'...
Robert J. Steamer, in Political Science Quarterly (Fall 1977), 2852 Broadway, New York,
N.Y. 10025.
Lawyers, political scientists, and reporters discussing the Supreme
Court under Chief Justice Warren Burger tend to adopt "angry and
apocalyptic" tones. Many feel that Nixon and Ford appointees to the
Burger Court have systematically dismantled the "edifice of civil liber-
ties" erected the Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren (1953-69).
Despite all the "hand-wringing,"...
now so ingrained that it wins votes from conservatives and liberals alike in congressional and state elections. But a "New Liberalism" has emerged in the past 20 years among a small but influential group of well-to-do, college-educated professionals who question the old economic and moral values. They reject equality of opportunity in favor of equality of result, writes Ladd, and take a libertarian stand on abortion, drugs, sexuality, and race.
New Liberals have a greater impact on the...
1460 local officials followed suit.
Like other medieval English institutions, the Chancery had evolved from an arm of the royal household into an administrative secretariat led a powerful Chancellor. All correspondence from King and Par- liament, all petitions, proclamations, records, indentures, summonses, and writs, were written by the Chancery. And just as all Chancery clerks came to write in a distinctive "Chancery script," so too their words acquired linguistic uniformity when they...
the
rank-and-file (the most recent example: Gerald Ford's 1965 victory over
incumbent Charles Halleck for the minority leadership).
Nelson speculates that the homogeneous, conservative composition
of the House Republican membership has been conducive to more open
leadership contests. The large, heterogeneous membership of the House
Democrats, however, must cope with fiercely contending regional and
'
ideological interests. Their highly regulated succession process seeks to
avoid the...
Jorma
K. Meittinen, in Bulletin of the Atomic
Threshold Scientists, (Sept. 1977), 1020 E. 58th St., Chicago, 111. 60637.
Congress is currently debating development of a new, more sophisti- cated weapon, the enhanced-radiation, or "neutron," bomb. The prin- cipal difference between this nuclear weapon and others is its capacity to deal a lethal blow to enemy troops while greatly limiting damage to buildings and roads in the area of the blast.
The mechanics of the weapon are straightforward,...
Jorma
K. Meittinen, in Bulletin of the Atomic
Threshold Scientists, (Sept. 1977), 1020 E. 58th St., Chicago, 111. 60637.
Congress is currently debating development of a new, more sophisti- cated weapon, the enhanced-radiation, or "neutron," bomb. The prin- cipal difference between this nuclear weapon and others is its capacity to deal a lethal blow to enemy troops while greatly limiting damage to buildings and roads in the area of the blast.
The mechanics of the weapon are straightforward,...
PERIODICALS
FOREIGN POLICY & DEFENSE
with civil and political liberties, argues Adelman. Some 90 percent of the African countries have one-party governments or military dictator- ships. Few have independent judiciaries or protect free speech. How- ever, the Carter administration is apparently not prepared to make human rights the criterion for a consistent policy toward both black and white Africa. And rather than directly confront Soviet-sponsored arms build-ups, the United States has relied...
their Arab allies. Meanwhile, Handel notes, Israel com- mitted an intelligence error imputing its own strategic theory to the enemy. It assumed that Egypt and Syria would contest Israel's air superiority with jet fighters rather than negate it by effective use of new Soviet ground-to-air missiles. Paradox 3: A quiet international envi- ronment is an ideal cover for war preparations. And 4: The better the intelligence service, the greater the risk of relying on its detailed but faulty findings.
The...
agreeing to disagree on certain issues. Only such an injection of realism can sustain genuine, if modest, progress.
The Navy's "The Transition to V/STOL1' James L.
Holloway 111, in Proceedings of the United V/STOL Plan States Naval Institute (Sept. 1977), An-
napolis, Md. 21402.
Without fanfare, the U.S. Navy decided in 1976 to move from reliance on conventional jet fighters taking off from big flat-tops like the Forres-tal and the Nimitz to development of new "vertical or short...
agreeing to disagree on certain issues. Only such an injection of realism can sustain genuine, if modest, progress.
The Navy's "The Transition to V/STOL1' James L.
Holloway 111, in Proceedings of the United V/STOL Plan States Naval Institute (Sept. 1977), An-
napolis, Md. 21402.
Without fanfare, the U.S. Navy decided in 1976 to move from reliance on conventional jet fighters taking off from big flat-tops like the Forres-tal and the Nimitz to development of new "vertical or short...
Robert J. Sarnuelson, in for East-West Trade National Journal (Oct. 8, 1977), 1730 M
St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036.
The experience of the past five years has changed U.S. thinking about East-West trade, writes Samuelson, a Journal staff writer. First, it is now clear that the Soviet Union and its allies see importing advanced Western technology not as a means of upgrading their armies, as was once feared, but as a way to solve chronic economic problems. Second, a long anticipated trade "bonanza"...
PERIODICALS
ECONOMICS, LABOR & BUSINESS
To sustain imports, the Soviets have allowed a rapid rise in their for-
eign debt, estimated at $14 billion in 1976, up from $1.9 billion in 1970.
Total Soviet bloc debt now stands at $40 billion.
All told, the Eastern and Western economies have drifted together to a degree unimagined a decade ago (Soviet grain imports from the West and proposed Western purchases of Yakutsk natural gas are often cited), but two big "ifs" hang over the...
unsuccessful job-hunting. Providing a job for everyone, says Ginzberg, is too ambitious; neither the public nor private sector can absorb these 17 million "overhangers" of the labor market. His conclusion: Manpower and training measures "should be focused on the groups that are currently least equipped to find and hold jobs."
"Before the Black Death" A. R. Brid-A Plague of Ills bury, in The Economic History Review
(Aug. 1977), 1 Mundells St., Welwyn
Garden City,...
unsuccessful job-hunting. Providing a job for everyone, says Ginzberg, is too ambitious; neither the public nor private sector can absorb these 17 million "overhangers" of the labor market. His conclusion: Manpower and training measures "should be focused on the groups that are currently least equipped to find and hold jobs."
"Before the Black Death" A. R. Brid-A Plague of Ills bury, in The Economic History Review
(Aug. 1977), 1 Mundells St., Welwyn
Garden City,...
unsuccessful job-hunting. Providing a job for everyone, says Ginzberg, is too ambitious; neither the public nor private sector can absorb these 17 million "overhangers" of the labor market. His conclusion: Manpower and training measures "should be focused on the groups that are currently least equipped to find and hold jobs."
"Before the Black Death" A. R. Brid-A Plague of Ills bury, in The Economic History Review
(Aug. 1977), 1 Mundells St., Welwyn
Garden City,...
David
R. Gergen, in Regulation (Sept.-Oct.on Regulation 19771, 1150 17th st., N.w., Washington,
D.C. 20036.
President Carter's early pledge to reduce "the burden of over-regulation" on business contrasts with his administration's early rec- ord of "almost studied ambiguity" toward regulatory reform, contends Gergen, a former aide to President Gerald Ford. This uncertain ap- proach, he believes, is incapable of dealing with federal regulatory growth that has developed a momentum...
the selfish desire to increase "max-
imally" his own welfare; using this assumption, he was able to express
economic principles in mathematics. This view-and the mathematical
-
approach that followed from it-is "more or less intact" in contempo-
rary economics and has been little questioned; nevertheless, claims
Sen, it is mistaken.
Edgeworth's economic model, which held that individual self-
interest would lead to market equilibrium (the point at which no
person's...
Soviet authorities if they have a Western follow- ing. But Osnos contends that excessive reliance on the dissident point of view gives Americans a distorted picture, "as oversimplified in a way as Soviet reports about the United States."
ite "The Rhetorical Appeals of Whites to Blacks During Reconstruction" Cal M.
strategy Logue, in Communications Monographs (Aug. 1977), 5205 Leesburg Pike, Falls Church, Va. 22041.
The Civil War disrupted the white political monopoly in...
Leonard Sussman, in The the Third World Washington Papers (1977), Center for Strategic and International Studies, ~eor~eiown
University, 1800 K St. N.W., Washington,D.C. 20006.
Third World governments are increasingly embittered Western news services-such as Associated Press, United Press International, Reuters, and Agence France-Presse-that emphasize natural and manmade dis- asters in underdeveloped nations while ignoring local economic gains. And they view the flow of largely Western information...
Michael J. Arlen, in The New Yorker (Oct. 31, 1977), 25 W. 43rd St.,
New York, N.Y. 10036.
There should-and could-be room on television for all kinds of news programs, says Arlen, the New Yorker's TV critic, but that is not the way television seems to work. "There are trends," he notes, "and the trends point to dollars." The dollars right now point to more "soft" news broadcasts.
Soft news-the "informational entertainment"...
Michael J. Arlen, in The New Yorker (Oct. 31, 1977), 25 W. 43rd St.,
New York, N.Y. 10036.
There should-and could-be room on television for all kinds of news programs, says Arlen, the New Yorker's TV critic, but that is not the way television seems to work. "There are trends," he notes, "and the trends point to dollars." The dollars right now point to more "soft" news broadcasts.
Soft news-the "informational entertainment"...
inducing firms with effec- tive emission control systems to reduce emissions more than is re- quired, while permitting other firms greater leeway. Finally, says Co- hen, Congress should approve stronger economic incentives, such as penalties for delayed compliance.
Viruses and "Viruses and the Biological Control of In- sect Pests" by T. W. Tinsley, in BioScience Pest Control (Oct. 1977), 1401 Wilson Blvd., Arlington,
Va. 22209.
Farmers rely heavily on chemical sprays to protect field...
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C. S. Mar- Don't Care tinson and J. ~c~ullough, FOO~
in Technology (Sept. 1977), 221 N. LaSalle St., Chicago, 111.60601.
Despite aggressive promotion of "natural" products retailers and widespread revelations of potentially hazardous additives in packaged food, American consumers appear to be less worried by the use of chem- ical preservatives in their food than they were four years ago.
Using surveys of the Seattle area conducted in 1974 and 1976, Mar- tinson, a University of Washington...
C. S. Mar- Don't Care tinson and J. ~c~ullough, FOO~
in Technology (Sept. 1977), 221 N. LaSalle St., Chicago, 111.60601.
Despite aggressive promotion of "natural" products retailers and widespread revelations of potentially hazardous additives in packaged food, American consumers appear to be less worried by the use of chem- ical preservatives in their food than they were four years ago.
Using surveys of the Seattle area conducted in 1974 and 1976, Mar- tinson, a University of Washington...
Travis Hirschi and Juvenile Crime Michael J. Hindelang, in American
Sociological Review (Aug. 1977), 1722 N
St., N.w., Washington, D.C. 20036.
For the past 50 years, academic criminologists have discounted evi- dence of a relationship between low IQ and delinquency; most textbooks, for example, either ignore the matter or question the corre- lation. Nevertheless, write Hirschi and Hindelang, sociologists at the State University of New York, the facts "strongly support" a relation- ship...
IODICALS
Welfare "How Large is the Welfare Class?" by
Martin Rein and Lee Rainwater, in Chal-Dependency lenge (sept.-oct. 1977), 901 North Broad-
way, White Plains, N.Y. 10603.
Many Americans believe that welfare has become a way of life for many of its recipients. But M.I.T. urbanologist Rein and Harvard sociologist Rainwater contend that the "welfare class" is, in fact, rather small.
Using data from the University of Michigan's Survey Research Center, the authors followed...
IODICALS
Welfare "How Large is the Welfare Class?" by
Martin Rein and Lee Rainwater, in Chal-Dependency lenge (sept.-oct. 1977), 901 North Broad-
way, White Plains, N.Y. 10603.
Many Americans believe that welfare has become a way of life for many of its recipients. But M.I.T. urbanologist Rein and Harvard sociologist Rainwater contend that the "welfare class" is, in fact, rather small.
Using data from the University of Michigan's Survey Research Center, the authors followed...
Carl Salzman, M.D., in American Journal of Electrotherapy Psychiatry (Sept. 1977), 1700 18th st.,
N.W., Washington, D.C. 20009.
Electro-convulsive therapy (ECT), for 40 years an accepted treatment for such disorders as severe depression, suicidal tendencies, and acute insomnia, has sparked a growing ethical debate.
"Though it is neither a panacea nor a sadistic intrusion," writes Har- vard psychiatrist Salzman, the nature of ECT (passing an electric cur- rent through the patient's brain)...
William The Anglophile Dusinberre, in Journal of American Studies (vol.2, no. 2), cambridge Univer- as Anglophobe sity Press, 32 E. 57th St., New York, N.Y. 10022.
Like other Americans of his time (and later), historian-philosopher Henry Adams (1838-1918) left his native land to enhance his personal and intellectual development. One critical period of growth occurred during Adams's seven-year sojourn in England (1861-68) as secretary to his father Charles, then Ambassador to Great Britain. The...
William The Anglophile Dusinberre, in Journal of American Studies (vol.2, no. 2), cambridge Univer- as Anglophobe sity Press, 32 E. 57th St., New York, N.Y. 10022.
Like other Americans of his time (and later), historian-philosopher Henry Adams (1838-1918) left his native land to enhance his personal and intellectual development. One critical period of growth occurred during Adams's seven-year sojourn in England (1861-68) as secretary to his father Charles, then Ambassador to Great Britain. The...
strong lines. Rubens, however, encouraged en- gravers to improve on traditional techniques. Most successful was Lucas Vorsterman (1595-1675), who used fine hatchings, cross-hatchings, and other subtle strokes, to suggest the texture of Rubens's colors, fabrics, and skin tones (as in The Descent from the Cross, above).
Rubens attached great importance to reproductions of his paintings. Prints made his work known to a wider audience, creating greater de- mand and higher prices. He apparently advanced...
contrast, Sartre, immersed in his celebrated "nausea," found life meaningless and made meaninglessness his standard. Were Dante writing today, Gardner suggests, he would be considered "freakish." Modern culture lionizes the artist for his angst, not his wisdom.
Contemporary novelists do little more than toy with moral stand- ards, and when a Norman Mailer calls a Charles Manson "intellectually courageous," the line between morality and escapist fiction begins to blur....
an orgy of diagnostic blundering."
Revolution in "Microelectronics" Robert N. Joyce; "Microelectronics and the Personal Com-
icroelectronics puter" by Alan C. Kay, in ScientificAmer-ican (Sept. 1977), 415 Madison Ave., New York, N.Y. 10017.
It all began 30 years ago with the development of the transistor, a small, low-power electric amplifier that replaced the large, power- hungry vacuum tube. Within the last decade, "microelectronics" has once again revolutionized...
Zhores Medvedev, in New Scien-
ccident in 1958? tist (June 30, 1977), King's Reach Tower,
Stanford St., London SE1 9LS, England.
In 1976, Russian emigre Zhores Medvedev called attention to a Soviet nuclear disaster in the late 1950s caused an explosion of nuclear waste stored in underground shelters. According to Medvedev, the blast contaminated thousands of square miles and caused several hundred deaths in the sparsely populated South Urals region of the U.S.S.R., where the first Soviet military...
comparison."
RELIGION & PHILOSOPHY
"Paul VI at Eighty" James V. Schall, S.J., in Worldview (Oct. 1977), P.O. Box 986, Farmingdale, N.Y.11735.
Although the papacy has generally enjoyed high prestige in the 20th century, Pope Paul VI (elected in 1963) has received "an unaccountably bad press," especially from Roman Catholics. Critics have found him contradictory, insensitive, and lacking in leadership. His opposition to birth control has sparked controversy and doubt. B...
comparison."
RELIGION & PHILOSOPHY
"Paul VI at Eighty" James V. Schall, S.J., in Worldview (Oct. 1977), P.O. Box 986, Farmingdale, N.Y.11735.
Although the papacy has generally enjoyed high prestige in the 20th century, Pope Paul VI (elected in 1963) has received "an unaccountably bad press," especially from Roman Catholics. Critics have found him contradictory, insensitive, and lacking in leadership. His opposition to birth control has sparked controversy and dou...
Michael N. Dobkowski, in Anti-Semitism American Quarterly (Summer 1977), 4025
Chestnut St., Philadelphia, Pa. 19174.
American historians have had to face the task of reconciling widespread anti-Jewish prejudice during the late 19th and early 20th centuries with a society generally regarded as democratic and libertarian. But stressing the "transitory" social and economic roots of prejudice, con- tends Dobkowski, professor of religion at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, scholars have...
Michael N. Dobkowski, in Anti-Semitism American Quarterly (Summer 1977), 4025
Chestnut St., Philadelphia, Pa. 19174.
American historians have had to face the task of reconciling widespread anti-Jewish prejudice during the late 19th and early 20th centuries with a society generally regarded as democratic and libertarian. But stressing the "transitory" social and economic roots of prejudice, con- tends Dobkowski, professor of religion at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, scholars have...
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PERIODICALS
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V. A. Acharkan, in Sovietskoe
~osudarstv~i Pravo (no. 4, 1977), 12 101 9,
Moscow, G-19, ul. Frunze, d. 10.
The Soviet Union, like the United States, feels severe strains on its social security system. Pensioners total 45 million, more than double the 1960 figure; total benefits have risen 2,000 percent since 1950. Moreover, says Acharkan, director of research at Moscow's Institute of Labor, there is mounting evidence that Soviet retirement policies e...
V. A. Acharkan, in Sovietskoe
~osudarstv~i Pravo (no. 4, 1977), 12 101 9,
Moscow, G-19, ul. Frunze, d. 10.
The Soviet Union, like the United States, feels severe strains on its social security system. Pensioners total 45 million, more than double the 1960 figure; total benefits have risen 2,000 percent since 1950. Moreover, says Acharkan, director of research at Moscow's Institute of Labor, there is mounting evidence that Soviet retirement policies e...
young Felipe Gonzalez, won nearly 30 percent of the vote and a role in what may become a competi- tive two-party system. Regional parties and extremist groups (includ- ing Francoists and communists) will have to watch from the wings.
But as Spain strives for representative government, the 300,000-man armed forces still openly exhibit Francoist tendencies. (The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces voiced its "general revulsion" over legali- zation of the Communist Party.) Fascist-trained...
Ukrainians and Mongols, among others) with German and Japanese invaders during World War 11.
Beirut's Road "An Appraisal of Lebanon's Postwar Eco- nomic Development and a Look to the Fu-
to Recovery ture" Samir A. Makdisi, in The Middle East Journal (vol. 31, no. 3, 1977), 1761 N St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036.
The long-range economic setback suffered by Lebanon during its 1975-76 civil war can only be estimated, but the magnitude of the devastation is clear. Damage to factories,...
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's 1868 war of independence; Antonio Maceo and Mdximo Gomez, veterans of the 1868 and 1895 rebellions against Spain; Josi Marti, martyred leader of the 1895 revolt; and Camilla Cienfuegos and Ernesto Chi Guevara, early Castro lieutenants in the Sierra Maestra.
The Wilson QuurterlyWinter 1978
56
Last June, the United States and Cuba began the process of restoring formal diplomatic relations. Already American dip- lomats have been stationed in Havana, and Cuban diplomats in Washington. Such tentative...
"There are laws of political as well as of physical gravita- tion," John Quincy Adams observed in 1823, drawing an anal- ogy between the fate of an apple severed from a tree and the destiny of a beautiful island 90 miles off the coast of the newly acquired territory of Florida: "Forcibly disjoined from its own unnatural connection with Spain and incapable of self-support, [Cuba] can gravitate only toward the North American Union,
Copyright @ I977by Martin J. Sherwin andPeter Winn.
The...
One day last spring, while walking along the breakwater in the once fashionable western section of Havana, I spotted a pair of massive high-rise buildings facing the ocean on an isolated promontory. "What are they?" I asked my Cuban companion. "Those are the living quarters of Soviet and East European technicians and their families," he said.
What did he think, I asked, of Soviet "influence" on Cubans and the Cuban Revolution? "It doesn't exist," he replied....
The story starts with Columbus. But the explorer's October 27, 1492 landing on Cuba (after he had blundered about for a couple of weeks in the Bahamas), did not cause a sudden, disrupting change of the sort that has characterized much of Cuban history.
Convinced that he had found Marco Polo's fabled Asian island kingdom of Cipango (probably Japan), Columbus sent men inland seeking gold and "the Khan." They found neither, and he sailed on, leaving no settlement behind.
Britain's Hugh T...
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GROWTH OF MAJOR POLITICAL PARTIES
The Founding Fathers saw no place for political parties in their vision of
America. But, inevitably, competition for the presidency produced two
political groupings that have survived occasional factionalism. Jefferso-
nian Republicans ultimately became Democrats preferring a strong chief
executive. Federalists moved in the opposite direction as they became first
Whigs, then Republicans. Leftists of a Communist or Socialist persuasion
stood apa...
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GROWTH OF MAJOR POLITICAL PARTIES
The Founding Fathers saw no place for political parties in their vision of
America. But, inevitably, competition for the presidency produced two
political groupings that have survived occasional factionalism. Jefferso-
nian Republicans ultimately became Democrats preferring a strong chief
executive. Federalists moved in the opposite direction as they became first
Whigs, then Republicans. Leftists of a Communist or Socialist persuasion
stood ap...
Seymour Martin Lipset's study offers some revealing insights into American society and the nature of our political parties.
Four months after Inauguration Day, President Carter invited his party's congressional leadership to the White House for a breakfast-table briefing on the economic policies of the new administration. Charles L. Schultze, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, displayed charts showing that, with full cooperation from business, labor, and consum- ers, it might just be possible to generate enough economic growth to balance the federal budget by 1980, as the President had promised.
Bert Lance,...
a party, the Patriots [Whigs]," D. W. Bro- gan reminds us in his acerbic POLITICS IN AMERICA (Harper, 1954, cloth; 1969, cloth & paper). "It had its origin in party meetings, caucuses* . . .in 'committees of correspondence' linking the party mem- bers from state to state, and it had its governing body in the various Congresses of which the most famous, in 1776, pub- lished the Declaration of Independence. The Founding Fathers . . .knew a great deal about parties and party organiza-...
the collage of styles on the,page opposite. We have seen new influences in the Southern novel and the Jewish novel, the Academic novel, even the nonfiction novel. Here four scholars discuss the American writers-from Saul Bellow to Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.-who have gained prominence since World War 11. Earl Rovit describes what these writers have in common. Jerome Klinkowitz ex- plores their uses of humor. Melvin J. Friedman scans the entire postwar period. Tony Tanner, an Englishman, examines the major...
Since the time of Fitzgerald and Hemingway, there have been bold changes in American fiction-as shown by the collage of styles on the,page opposite. We have seen new influences in the Southern novel and the Jewish novel, the Academic novel, even the nonfiction novel. Here four scholars discuss the American writers-from Saul Bellow to Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.-who have gained prominence since World War 11. Earl Rovit describes what these writers have in common. Jerome Klinkowitz ex- plores their uses...
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...
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...
"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...
Dick, in Edgar Allan Poe's Ligeia and The Fall of the House of Usher, which were to suggest to many later critics some previously un- perceived connections between 19th-century American writing and the con- cerns of modem fiction.
His timeless reminder to critics-and ordinary readers: "It is hard to hear a new voice, as hard as it is to listen to an unknown language. We just don't listen. There is a new voice in the old American classics. The world has declined to hear it. . . . Why?-Out of...
public agencies and private institutions
"Benefits and Burdens: A Report on the West Bank and Gaza Strip Economies Since 1967"
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 345 E. 46th St., New York N.Y.
10017.164 DR. $3.75 Author: ~riah Van Arkadie
Since Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank of the Jordan River after the Six Day War, economic changes have created an improved "new status quo" for the one million native Palestinian Arabs under Israeli control....
PAPERBOUNDS
ETHICS IN MEDICINE: Historical Per- spectives and Contemporary Concerns. Edited by Stanley Joel Reiser, Arthur J. Dyck, and William J. Curran. M.I.T., 1977.679 pp. $19.95 (cloth, $40)
This comprehensive text developed for use in medical courses at Harvard is also a unique sourcebook for lawyers, legis- lators dealing with health plans, and lay citizens. It opens with selections from the Corpus Hippocratium (probably written by Pythagorean philosophers in the 5th to 4th centuries B...