A Whole Earth Catalogue A Whole Earth Catalogue
In the United States a deeply rooted bias toward the practical renders all knowledge, even the most sublime forms of wisdom, merely an instrumental good. This pragmatic streak ten...
Jun 13, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Eric Zencey
A Bombmaker of Conscience A Bombmaker of Conscience
We are all fascinated by the lives of the powerful and famous, and in the last part of the twentieth century Andrei Sakharov became one of Russia's most famous. He burst onto the ...
Jun 13, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Dusko Doder
Backbeat in China Backbeat in China
A hundred days ago Wu'er Kaixi was a fugitive.... Yesterday, before an audience of 800 Americans and Chinese at Brandeis University, he showed what brought a 21-year-old Beijing N...
Jun 13, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Jeffrey Wasserstrom
Birthday Poem Birthday Poem
Hot, rained-on, packed-down straw, strewn then abandoned between the rows of eggplant, tomato plants, onion, and herbs catches the evening's last September gnats in pale mats and ...
Jun 13, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Lynne McMahon
France: The Film Vote France: The Film Vote
Politics were never far from anyone's mind at this year's fifty-fifth Cannes International Film Festival, which unfolded in a France still reeling from the shock of far-right cand...
Jun 13, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Leslie Camhi
The Growing Nuclear Peril The Growing Nuclear Peril
A more virulent nuclear era has superseded the perils of the cold war.
Jun 6, 2002 / Feature / Jonathan Schell
Testing Times in Higher Ed Testing Times in Higher Ed
The SAT has been on the ropes lately. The University of California system has threatened to quit using the test for its freshman admissions, arguing that the exam has done more ha...
Jun 6, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Peter Sacks
‘Blue Clear Down’ ‘Blue Clear Down’
Late in her life, Lorine Niedecker collected several dozen of her poems in handmade books that she gave to three friends. One poem common to all three books is "Who Was Mary Shell...
Jun 6, 2002 / Books & the Arts / John Palattella
Global Rights: The Movies Global Rights: The Movies
As all reputable news outlets assure us, privatization benefits everyone--which is lucky, since these same outlets report that privatization is inevitable. We live out a happy fat...
Jun 6, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Stuart Klawans
The Browning of America The Browning of America
In the past two decades, Richard Rodriguez has offered us a gamut of anecdotes, mostly about himself in action in an environment that is not always attuned to his own inner life. ...
May 30, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Ilan Stavans