Books and Ideas

It’s Only a Beginning It’s Only a Beginning

Nearly four years have elapsed since that merry month of May when France and the whole world were taken aback by a sudden and momentous upheaval.

Apr 17, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Daniel Singer

Stationary Stationary

Perhaps time is our invention To make things seem to move Like the uncovering tail of the blue jay As it lights its feet on the wet Trembling wood. Perhaps the seasons are really n…

Apr 11, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Laura Manuelidis

The Undertaker’s Art, Exhumed The Undertaker’s Art, Exhumed

"It's a great mistake not to feel pleased when you have the chance," a rich, disfigured spinster advises a frail, well-mannered boy in The Shrimp and the Anemone, the first novel ...

Apr 11, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Caleb Crain

The Balfour Declaration The Balfour Declaration

Great Britain grants a homeland to the homeless Jews.

Apr 5, 2002 / Feature / H. M. Kallen

The Body Shop The Body Shop

There are those opposed to the use of cloning technology to create human embryos for stem-cell research whose concerns emanate from commitments to social justice. One of their arg...

Apr 4, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Ralph Brave

The Keyboard Campus The Keyboard Campus

"Thirty years from now the big university campuses will be relics," business "guru" Peter Drucker proclaimed in Forbes five years ago. "It took more than 200 years for the printed...

Apr 4, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Stephen Brier and Roy Rosenzweig

The China Syndrome The China Syndrome

Like it or not, America has been able to achieve and maintain its supremacy as a global power because of its capacity to absorb the best from the rest of the world. This dependenc...

Mar 28, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Peter Kwong and Dusanka Miscevic

Song of the Sunshine State Song of the Sunshine State

Campbell McGrath's entertaining and frustrating fifth book of poems--every single one of them devoted to some aspect of Florida--raises two large questions. One has to do with rep...

Mar 28, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Stephen Burt

Sonnet: Against Making Blood Speak Out Sonnet: Against Making Blood Speak Out

If I die one day from the bullet of a young killer-- a Palestinian who crosses the northern border-- or from the blast of a hand grenade he throws, or in a bomb explosion while I'...

Mar 28, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Meir Wieseltier

The Fishnet Fallacy The Fishnet Fallacy

When a girl becomes her school's designated slut, her friends stop talking to her. Pornographic rumors spread with dazzling efficiency, boys harass her openly in the hallways, gir...

Mar 28, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Elaine Blair

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