Autumn 1989
The Islamic World
In Essence
Reviews of articles from periodicals and specialized journals here and abroad
POLITICS & GOVERNMENT 7 RELIGION & PHILOSOPHY 20 FOREIGN POLICY & DEFENSE 9 SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY 22 ECONOMICS, LABOR & BUSINESS 12 RESOURCES & ENVIRONMENT 24 SOCIETY 16 ARTS & LETTERS 26 PRESS & TELEVISION 18 OTHER NATIONS 29
POLITICS & GOVERNMENT
"The Political Thought of President George Washington" byWashington Richard Loss, in Presidential Studies Quarterly (Summ...
Reviews of articles from periodicals and specialized journals here and abroad
POLITICS & GOVERNMENT 7 RELIGION & PHILOSOPHY 20 FOREIGN POLICY & DEFENSE 9 SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY 22 ECONOMICS, LABOR & BUSINESS 12 RESOURCES & ENVIRONMENT 24 SOCIETY 16 ARTS & LETTERS 26 PRESS & TELEVISION 18 OTHER NATIONS 29
POLITICS & GOVERNMENT
"The Political Thought of President George Washington" byWashington Richard Loss, in Presidential Studies Quarterly (Summ...
Terry W. Culler,
Let Them Eat Cake!
in Cam Policy Report (May-June 1989), 224 Second St. S.E., Washington, D.C. 20077-0872,
In Washington, it is called the "quiet cri- sis." Low pay is demoralizing the federal work force and draining it of talent, warn such "inside-the-Beltway" luminaries as Paul Volcker, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. Volcker now stumps for a big federal pay raise as head of a group called the National Commission on the Public...
Terry W. Culler,
Let Them Eat Cake!
in Cam Policy Report (May-June 1989), 224 Second St. S.E., Washington, D.C. 20077-0872,
In Washington, it is called the "quiet cri- sis." Low pay is demoralizing the federal work force and draining it of talent, warn such "inside-the-Beltway" luminaries as Paul Volcker, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. Volcker now stumps for a big federal pay raise as head of a group called the National Commission on the Public...
PERIODICALS
bottle, Steinberg says. Despite many non- the Soviet Union and the West. Washing- proliferation pacts, advanced weapons ton failed even to apply sanctions against have reached the Middle East from both Iraq after it used chemical weapons.
Words and War
From the American soldiers who fought during World War I1 we have inherited "snafu" ("situation normal, all f***** up") and many other words with unprintable definitions. Why this burst of sly verbal insubordination, asks...
politics and chance events.
He also developed concepts that help soldiers understand (and anticipate) the day-to-day vagaries of war. His notion of friction, writes Cannon, was "an elegantly stated predecessor of Murphy's Law," which held that countless minor incidents inevitably lower the level of military per- formance. A related concept is the "cul- minating point," the notion that a combat
But American officers have been most bewitched Clausewitz's emphasis on politics....
John A. Barnes, in The Wash- ington Monthly (June 1989), 161 1 Connecticut Ave. N.W., Wash- Of Cable TV ington, D.C. 20077-3865.
If you have cable television in your home, chances are that your local government has granted a franchise monopoly to a ca- ble company. Chances are also good that it made a big mistake, argues Barnes, an edi- tor at the Detroit News.
Since cable television's growth began during the 1970s, some 5,000 U.S. munici- palities have granted franchises. Cable, like telephone...
John A. Barnes, in The Wash- ington Monthly (June 1989), 161 1 Connecticut Ave. N.W., Wash- Of Cable TV ington, D.C. 20077-3865.
If you have cable television in your home, chances are that your local government has granted a franchise monopoly to a ca- ble company. Chances are also good that it made a big mistake, argues Barnes, an edi- tor at the Detroit News.
Since cable television's growth began during the 1970s, some 5,000 U.S. munici- palities have granted franchises. Cable, like telephone...
Vincent Vinikas, in Jo~~rnal
of Social History (Summer 1989), Carnegie Mellon Univ., Pittsburgh, Pa. 15213.
During the 1920s, soap suddenly became hard to sell. Paved streets, automobiles, electricity, and gas stoves were eliminating much of the filth and muck that had per- meated American life. To make matters worse, the expanding cosmetics industry was making it hard to peddle Camay, Lux, and other soaps as beauty products.
To meet the crisis, the soap producers created a trade association...
John J. DiIulio, Jr., in The Brookings Review (Summer 1989), 1775 Without Walls Mass. Ave. N.w., Washington, D.C. 20036.
America's jails are bursting at the seams. Nine hundred thousand criminals were behind bars in 1987, up a third since 1983. The number on parole or probation grew even faster, reaching 2.6 million. The price tag for federal, state, and local cor- rections has soared to some $25 billion an- nually; state corrections budgets are grow- ing faster than is spending on education.
Most o...
John J. DiIulio, Jr., in The Brookings Review (Summer 1989), 1775 Without Walls Mass. Ave. N.w., Washington, D.C. 20036.
America's jails are bursting at the seams. Nine hundred thousand criminals were behind bars in 1987, up a third since 1983. The number on parole or probation grew even faster, reaching 2.6 million. The price tag for federal, state, and local cor- rections has soared to some $25 billion an- nually; state corrections budgets are grow- ing faster than is spending on education.
Most o...
1980, blacks' earnings had quadrupled to $20,480, out- pacing the gains of white men, who made $28,212. Then, young black men began falling behind their white peers.
Almost all of the black gains during the 1940- 1980 period resulted from two fac- tors, according to Smith and Welch: eco- nomic growth (which accounted for 45 percent of the gain) and black migration from southern farms to cities, mostly in the North. Migration created better job opportunities, but more importantly it boosted the...
PERIODICALS
vate mass transit would keep costs down. as well as efforts to prevent the growing
Wachs argues that Washington should bus and subway crime that scares urban stop trying to woo suburbanites away from riders away, has been neglected. Better to their cars. Federal subsidy formulas have give cities and states lump sums of transit encouraged construction of costly but du- aid for them to use however they see fit. bious rail systems, notably in Baltimore, The local preference for flat...
a synthetic Dan Rather?
Defenders of the technology argue that machines are not unethical; people are. True enough, says Lasica. But the fine line between what is ethical and what is not is already beginning to blur.
"Danny Gilmore, RIP" Ted Joy, in he Quill (May 1989), 53Racial Hypocrisy W. Jackson Blvd., Suite 731, Chicago, 111. 60604-3610.
On the night of July 17, 1988, 23-year-old Danny Gilmore and two friends were driv- ing in his pickup truck through Cleve- land's East Side slum,...
Christopher Lasch, in This World (Summer 1989), P.O. Box That Kills 448, Mount Morris, 111. 61054.
A century or more ago, the handicapped, the deformed, and the mentally ill were commonly teased and ridiculed on city streets. Some, such as the 19th-century El- eohant Man. David Merrick. were dis-played in freak shows. criminals were pa- raded before angry crowds and pelted with curses and stones; murderers were exe-cuted in public.
It is a triumph of modem humanitarian- ism that such spectacles w...
Christopher Lasch, in This World (Summer 1989), P.O. Box That Kills 448, Mount Morris, 111. 61054.
A century or more ago, the handicapped, the deformed, and the mentally ill were commonly teased and ridiculed on city streets. Some, such as the 19th-century El- eohant Man. David Merrick. were dis-played in freak shows. criminals were pa- raded before angry crowds and pelted with curses and stones; murderers were exe-cuted in public.
It is a triumph of modem humanitarian- ism that such spectacles...
Richard E. Michod, in The Sciences (May-June 1989), 2 E. 63rd St. New York, N.Y. 10131- Makes Sense 0191.
To scientists, it has never been very obvi- The cells that create eggs or sperm un- ous why so many species, from yeasts to dergo a process called meiosis. Each cell's humans, engage in sexual reproduction. chromosomes line up and exchange
After all, it consumes a great deal of genes, then divide. The result: two egg (or time and energy. It isn't any fun for most sperm) cells, each with only...
dominant genes from the other. Asexual
organisms, contrast, perform a kind of incest. That is why sex and all that goes with it makes sense to scientists, if not to others.
Chaos "Chaos Theory: How Big an Advance?" by Robert Pool, in Sci-ence (July 7, 1989), 1333 H St. N.W., Washington, D.C. 20005.
Chaos has crept into science. A century af-ter "chaos theory" was first hinted at by the French mathematician Henri Poincar6 (1854-1912), scientists are debating whether it heralds...
dominant genes from the other. Asexual
organisms, contrast, perform a kind of incest. That is why sex and all that goes with it makes sense to scientists, if not to others.
Chaos "Chaos Theory: How Big an Advance?" by Robert Pool, in Sci-ence (July 7, 1989), 1333 H St. N.W., Washington, D.C. 20005.
Chaos has crept into science. A century af-ter "chaos theory" was first hinted at by the French mathematician Henri Poincar6 (1854-1912), scientists are debating whether it heralds...
a pleasant ritual: With an absinthe spoon, the drinker held a sugar cube over a small quantity of the liqueur and poured water over the cube to dilute the drink's bitter taste. Like most of the drugs that came after it, ab- sinthe was said to be an aphrodisiac. As the poet Ernest Dowson put it, "absinthe makes the tart grow fonder." The liqueur was immortalized in paintings such as Edouard Manet's The Absinthe Drinker and championed the poets Charles Baude- laire and Arthur Rimbaud. The...
VDTs-suffered ab-normalities. The experts who testified be- fore Congress in 1981 had lacked equip- ment capable of detecting ELF emissions. The U.S. and Canadian press reported none of this.
And so it went. Every new study point- ing to hazards was dismissed other ex- perts-or in the case of important re-search sponsored by IBM in 1984, Brodeur contends, was misrepresented by corporate spokesmen. The Reagan admin- istration delayed a government research effort. Newspaper publishers and editors,...
Abigail Solomon-Godeau, in An in AmericaGauguin'sMyth (July 1989), 542 Pacific Ave., Marion, Ohio 43306.
Paul Gauguin's life (1848-1903) "is the stuff of which potent cultural fantasies are created. And indeed have been."
The tale is now well-known, writes Solo- mon-Godeau, an art historian. In 1886, the 38-year-old former stockbroker cast off his bourgeois existence, deserting his wife and five children in Copenhagen to paint full
Paul Ga~~guin's
Parau na te Varua ino (Words of t...
Jacques Barzun, in The Aineri- can Scholar (Summer 19891, 1811 Q St. N.W., Washington,
D.C. 20009.
According to contemporary etiquette, one of the highest compliments a person can pay another is to call him "creative."
Creativity is "incessantly invoked, praised, urged, demanded, hoped for, de- clared achieved, or found lacking," ob- serves Banun, a professor emeritus at Co- lumbia. Political campaigns are criticized for "lacking in creativity,' successful busi- nessmen...
Jacques Barzun, in The Aineri- can Scholar (Summer 19891, 1811 Q St. N.W., Washington,
D.C. 20009.
According to contemporary etiquette, one of the highest compliments a person can pay another is to call him "creative."
Creativity is "incessantly invoked, praised, urged, demanded, hoped for, de- clared achieved, or found lacking," ob- serves Banun, a professor emeritus at Co- lumbia. Political campaigns are criticized for "lacking in creativity,' successful busi- nessmen...
T. J. Clark, Rob- ert L. Herbert, and others "from concern with formal qualities to subject matter and its social context," writes Flam. These scholars have argued that the impression- ists were united less the way they wielded their brushes than by their atti- tudes towards modern life and their themes-generally, spectacle and urban leisure. Thus, several artists traditionally placed on the periphery of impressionism (Mary Cassatt, Edgar Degas, Edouard Ma- net, and Berthe Morisot) have...
Peter Schneider, in The New York Times Magazine (June 25, 1989), 229 W. 43rd St., New York, N.Y. 10036.
"Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" President Ronald Reagan exclaimed in 1987 as he stood before the Berlin Wall. He was repeating a demand that virtually every Western leader has made-implic- itly, a call for the reunification of the two Germanys-during the 28 years of the wall's existence.
What if Gorbachev did it?
Reagan, his successor, and America's al- lies in Western Europe...
democratic merely "preserves the illusion that the wall reforms in the East, not "some utopian is the only thing dividing the Germans."
El Salvador's War "El Salvador's Forgotten War" James LeMoyne, in Foreign Affairs (Summer 1989), 58 E. 68th St., New York, N.Y. 10021.
Guerrilla war broke out in El Salvador nine years ago, and LeMoyne, a New York Times reporter who has covered the coun- try since 1982, doubts that it will end for at least another decade.
Five reasonably...
Cuba and Nicaragua. The rebels have inflicted some $2 billion in damage, nearly canceling out the $3.3 bil-lion in aid (not counting covert grants) provided Washington during the 1980s. Captured rebel documents show that the FMLN is bent on military victory. It re-gards participation in peace talks only as war by other means.
U.S.-provided arms and aerial gunships have helped the army force the guerrillas to operate in groups of five to 20 men, rather than company- and battalion-size units, but...
Book Reviews
SKETCHES FROM A LIFE. By George F.
Kennan. Pantheon. 364 pp. $22.95
GEORGE KENNAN AND THE DILEMMAS
OF U.S. FOREIGN POLICY. By David
Mayors. Oxford. 402 pp. $32.50
KENNAN AND THE ART OF FOREIGN
POLICY. By Anders Steplzanson. Harvard. 380
pp. $35
THE IMAGE OF THE BLACK IN WESTERN
ART. Volume IV: From the American
Revolution to World War I. Part One, Slaves
and Liberators. Part Two, Black Models and
White Myths. By H~tglz Honour. Harvard. 379
pp.; 306 pp. $50 each
Abstracted by Fray
Bartolome de las Casas, trans. by Oliver Dunn
and James E. Kelley, Jr. Univ. of Okla. 504 pp.
$57.50
By William L. Vance.
Yale. 454 pp; 498 pp. $30 each
From the Mid-
Nineteenth Century to the Present. Trans. and
Edited by R. David Ark~tsha nd Leo 0.L ee.
Vniv. of Calif. 309 pp. $25
By James Fallows. Houghton Miflin. 245
pp. $18.95
By William Pfaf Hill
and Wang. 198 pp. $19.95
By Richard Stuart Olson with
Bruno Podesta and Joanne M. Nigg. Princeton.
187pp. $19.95
By Robert
Penn Warren. Random House. 424 pp. $24.95
By Bruno Schulz. Trans. by Celiiza Wieniewska.
Walker and Company. 311 pp. $22.95
By Samuel L. Macey.
Univ. of Ga. 288 pp. $35
By Robert
Teitelman. Basic. 237 pp. $19.95
By Oliver Sacks. Univ. of Calif. 171
pp. S15.95
Essays
all Muslims through- out their 1400-year-old history: Who is the rightful ruler of an Islamic state? What constitutes a proper state and soci- ety under Islam? And, indeed, is there one and only one correct conception of state, society, and leadership under Is- lam? The questions are far from aca-demic. To many of the one billion Mus- lims living today, they are often matters of life or death.
Our contributors here offer three ap- proaches to the ongoing Islamic debate. Bernard Lewis considers...
when there is a crisis-when hostages are taken, or a bloody jihad is waged, or an ayatollah pronounces a death sentence upon a "blasphemous" novelist. Few Westerners recognize that beneath such head- line events lie ancient, tangled conflicts that go to the heart of Islamic faith and civilization, often threatening to divide it.
One such conflict-between worldly and spiritual authority-finds apt expres- sion in the 16th-century Persian painting featured on this page. It depicts an early...
Ever since they made a revolution and seized power 10 years ago, Iran's clerical leaders have considered themselves to be engaged in a unique experiment to create an exemplary Islamic state, based on Islamic law and superior to both capitalism and communism. "We should be a model to the world," Ali-Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, former speaker of Iran's Majles, or parliament, said tw...
-including the some 40 nations in which Muslims constitute the majority of the population-is a rich assort- ment of peoples and cultures. It is united, in tact, only by the prevalence of poverty. Beyond the borders of the desert oil king- doms, Muslim societies are poor and devel- oping, confined by their lack of political, economic, and military resources. They face the ample, simultaneous difficulties of modernization: sprawling, densely popu-
'
lated cities immobilized by traffic; u...
As recently as 15 years ago, no serious stu- dent of social and political change in the Middle East, North Africa, or South and South- east Asia paid much attention to Islam. It was obviously the religion professed by the over- whelming majority of the population~ in many nations of these regions, and no doubt it had once provided the framework of ideas and sen- timents through which Muslims interpreted their own actions and institutions. But that was history. As an ideology in the modern world,...
It is either celebrated or conceded that ture, matted-down light hair, plain specta- John Dewey is the most influential Amer- cles, drooping mustache, and starched ican philosopher of the 20th century. No collar, Dewey looked more like a Victorian other philosopher in this century, Richard businessman from the Midwest than a theo- Rorty has observed, so freed philosophy retician of metaphysics and a political activ- from its age-old metaphysical concerns and ist. But in habit if not in appearance,...
WQ AUTUMN 1989
Reading is reading is reading, as Gertrude Stein might have said. Medieval monks reading the Bible aloud, a subway commuter scanning the New York Daily News, Mao Zedong perusing Marx's Capital-all, it may seem, are engaged in the same activity. But is it the same? Robert Darnton thinks not. Reading has a history, he argues. Here he examines the act of reading in Europe and Amer- ica as it has changed over four centuries. How people read can be more revealing than what they read....
6 per- cent per year. Researchers at MIT calculate that "the aver-age person would have to take a flight every day for the next 29,000 years before being in- volved in a fatal crash."
True, the authors say, re- ports of "near collisions" have jumped recently (up 26 per- cent between 1986 and 1987).
"Religious Change In America."
Harvard Univ. Press, Cambridge, Mass. 02138. 133 pp. $25.
Author: Andrew M. Greeley
"When the Social Science Re- search Council i...
Today, China is in grave danger of los- ing its past. Like a snail robbed of its shell, it has nothing to pull back into, little to carry forward with certainty. The mass movement for democracy in the spring of 1989 already did not happen. The govern- ment claims it was nothing but "counter- revolutionary turmoil" instigated by a handful of "hooligans." The students and ordinary citizens killed in Beijing may not be mourned publicly. Remembrance of the dead-long the anchor...
could a present-day Manhattanite of the century, had been more than dou-
somehow be transported back to the bling every 20 years and by 1850 stood at
mid-19th century, he would find little to slightly over half a million. The "Empire
surprise him in the New York City of that City," as some insisted on calling her, al-
-
time. Although its teeming boardinghouses ready had the reputation of being a
and tenements, hotels, pleasure haunts, cosmopolis-of being, owing to the l...
