Summer 1995
Learning from the Fifties
In Essence
A Survey of Recent Articles
It was never supposed to be permanent, and after some 30 years the time may have come for government "affirmative action" to cease. Senator Joseph Lieberman (D.-Conn.), upon assuming the chairmanship of the moderate Democratic Leadership Council earlier this year, expressed the now-wide- spread view: racial and gender preferences are "patently unfair."
California is taking the lead in the dismantle- ment. Governor Pete Wilson recently ordered scores...
Gordon S. Wood, in The New York Review of Books (June 8,1995), 250 West 57th St., New York, N.Y. 10107.
He was the author of Common Sense (1776), the most influential pamphlet of the Ameri- can Revolution, and of other stirring works, including an essay that famously began: "These are the times that try men's souls." He labored in behalf of liberty and the American Revolution "with as much effort as any man living," no less an authority than Thomas Jefferson recalled in 1801....
Dean C. Hammer, in Presidential Studies ~uarkrly (Spring 1995), 208 East 75th St., New York, N.Y. 10021.
The presidency of George Bush remains a puzzle. Timemagazine summed it up inJanuary 1991, when it named the 41st president "Men of the Year": a double image of him was splashed on the cover as if to say, "George Bush, bold leader of the crusade against Saddam Hussein, meet George Bush, curiously inert domestic political leader." The political scientists are al- ready inventing...
Dean C. Hammer, in Presidential Studies ~uarkrly (Spring 1995), 208 East 75th St., New York, N.Y. 10021.
The presidency of George Bush remains a puzzle. Timemagazine summed it up inJanuary 1991, when it named the 41st president "Men of the Year": a double image of him was splashed on the cover as if to say, "George Bush, bold leader of the crusade against Saddam Hussein, meet George Bush, curiously inert domestic political leader." The political scientists are al- ready inventing...
? the western range of wolves, bears, cougars, "Following in Her Footsteps? Faculty Gender Composi- and coyotes that prey on domestic livestock." tion and Women's Choices of College Majors" BrandiceJ. Canes and Harvey S. Rosen, inlndustrial and Federal dams on western rivers supply Labor Relations Review (Apr. 19951,201 ILR Research ranches with plentiful subsidized water, even Bldg., Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y.14853-3901. in times .of drought.
"A more massive subsidy to...
Carl M. Cannon, and "The New Congress & the Old Media" Terry Eastland, in Forbes MediaCritic (Spring 1995),
P.O. Box 762, Bedminster, N.J. 07921.
"Today," anchorman Tom Brokaw an-nounced, introducing a story on the NBC evening news last September 27, "GOP con- gressional candidates were summoned to Washington and given a battle plan. However, as NBC's Lisa Myers tells us tonight, it is long on promises but short on sound premises."
And that's the way it was for...
Carl M. Cannon, and "The New Congress & the Old Media" Terry Eastland, in Forbes MediaCritic (Spring 1995),
P.O. Box 762, Bedminster, N.J. 07921.
"Today," anchorman Tom Brokaw an-nounced, introducing a story on the NBC evening news last September 27, "GOP con- gressional candidates were summoned to Washington and given a battle plan. However, as NBC's Lisa Myers tells us tonight, it is long on promises but short on sound premises."
And that's the way it was for...
"Hackers Taking a Byte Out of Computer Crime" Wade Roush, in Technology Review (Apr. 1995), Bldg. W59, MIT, Cambridge, Mass. 02139.
During the 1970s and '80s, rebellious young "hackers" found it thrilling to break into cor- porate and academic computer systems and commit electronic mischief. They formed
144 WQ SUMMER 1995
clubs with names such as "Masters of Decep- tion" and "Legion of Doom" and reveled in their superiority over the slow-footed "Estab- l...
Book Reviews
THE LIFE OF GRAHAM GREENE, Volume
II: 1939-1955. By Norman Sherry. Viking. 672
pp. $34.95
GRAHAM GREENE: The Enemy Within. By
Michael Shelden. Random House. 442 pp. $25
ONE BY ONE FROM THE INSIDE OUT:
Essays and Reviews on Race and Responsi-
bility in America. By Glenn C. Loury. Free
Press. 332 pp. $25
THE NEXT AMERICAN NATION: The
New Nationalism and the Fourth American
Revolution. By Michael Lind. 300 pp. Free
Press. $23
By Marshall Sahlins.
Univ. of Chicago. 318 pp. $24.95
By Gary Kates. Basic Books. 363 pp. $25
By Alan Brinkley.
Knopf. 371 pp. $27.50
By Victor Davis Hanson. Free Press. 541 pp. $28
By Svetlana
Alpers. Yale. 178 pp. $30
By Steven
Solomon. Simon &' Schusfer. 606 pp. $30
By Diane E. Davis.
Temple. 391 pp. $24.95
By Robert S. McNamara
with Brian VanDeMark. Random House.
414 pp. $27.50
By Jack Miles. Knopf. 446
pp. $27.50
By Alan Ryan.
Norton. 416 pp. $30
By George Johnson. Knopf.
357 pp. $27.50
By I. Bernard Cohen. Norton. 368 pp. $25
Essays
Many Americans long for the virtues of the 1950s--community, security, certainty. To retrieve them, they will have to reconsider their allegiance to other cherished values.
The introduction to this issue's cluster of articles.
With the United States no longer engaged in war, hot or cold, American science is entering a new-- and uncertain-- age. The close relationship between science and government is being redefined. The exponential growth of the scientific enterprise is at an end. And science itself comes increasingly under attack.
The growth of the profession of science, the scientific enterprise, is bound to reach certain limits.
Science today is increasingly mistrusted and under attack.
A scholar once called the late 18th century an era of "competitive dying." The ability to die well, preferably with a few well-chosen words on one's lips, was widely seen as a measure of greatness. For the philosopher David Hume, our author writes, death provided what many considered the ultimate test of his ideas.
Recent events in Russia raise fears that authoritarianism is making a comeback. Our author finds that the danger is not an overly powerful state but an enfeebled one.
Bosnia has become a synonym, along with Beirut, Somalia, and Rwanda, of murderous conflict and political anarchy. The tragedy of this Balkan nation, a Sarajevo-born journalist explains, cannot be understood apart from the larger story of Yugoslavia's unraveling.
Even its defenders concede that the modern American suburb has many
shortcomings. An antidote may be found in the ideas of the nation's earliest suburban pioneers.
How we name our decades contribute to their enduring legacies.
A look at the poems of George Starbuck.
