Books and Ideas

The Call of the Junco Bird The Call of the Junco Bird

An English woman I've never met
calls to read me her new poem
about the little Texas junco bird
whose cry sounded to the early settlers

Nov 26, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Edward Hirsch

Rethinking the Movement Rethinking the Movement

As any casual observer of mega-bookstore shelves knows, the history of the modern civil rights movement is a well-studied field.

Nov 26, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Eric Arnesen

My Guitar Gently Weeps My Guitar Gently Weeps

"I was in a highly unshaved and tatty state," John Lennon said of his 1966 meeting with a certain conceptual artist, then mounting her first show at London's Indica Gallery.

Nov 21, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Alex Abramovich

The Humanitarian Temptation The Humanitarian Temptation

In 2000, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan posed a question to the Millennium Summit of the UN: "If humanitarian intervention is, indeed, an unacceptable assault on s...

Nov 21, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Ian Williams

Mystery in Milan Mystery in Milan

On March 16, 1972, readers in Italy and throughout the publishing world were shocked by the day's headlines.

Nov 14, 2002 / Books & the Arts / André Schiffrin

Atop the Volcano Atop the Volcano

Gioconda Belli--poet, novelist, society belle reborn as Sandinista comrade--has written a memoir of the Nicaraguan struggle that reads like a romance--a romance with politics a...

Nov 14, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Anderson Tepper

A Sex of One’s Own A Sex of One’s Own

Nature versus nurture was always too simple a formulation. Now, we ask: Is it chance, choice, family, culture, hormones or genes that determine who we are and whom we love?

Nov 14, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Julia M. Klein

The Naked Truth The Naked Truth

If you've never set foot in the likes of Club Paradise, Scarlett's, New York Dolls, Secrets, Peepers or the boldly named Booby Trap (yes, it does exist), your image of a strip ...

Nov 7, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Hillary Frey

The Scourge of Baltimore The Scourge of Baltimore

As truth-tellers, journalists remain the undocumented aliens of the knowledge industry, operating in an off-the-books epistemological economy apart from philosophers and scient...

Nov 7, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Carlin Romano

Update on Arming America Update on Arming America

Michael Bellesiles, the historian accused of research falsification in his book Arming America, a study of gun culture, announced on October 25 that he was resigning from Emory...

Nov 7, 2002 / Books & the Arts / The Editors

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