When the CIA Was the NEA When the CIA Was the NEA
In June 1948 George Kennan, director of the State Department's policy planning staff, drafted National Security Directive NSC-10/2.
May 25, 2000 / Books & the Arts / Michael P. Rogin
Harrington’s Dilemma Harrington’s Dilemma
Maurice Isserman's The Other American: The Life of Michael Harrington evokes and will enrich the legacy of the last great American socialist in the tradition of Eugene Debs and N...
May 25, 2000 / Books & the Arts / Tom Hayden
Sartre’s Roads to Freedom Sartre’s Roads to Freedom
Asked where he was coming from, my friend's son replied, “From the demo against the death of Sartre.” It was April 19, 1980, and the definition fitted perfectly…
May 18, 2000 / Books & the Arts / Daniel Singer
A Closing of the American Kind A Closing of the American Kind
You will recall that when Augie March went to Mexico, he hooked up with an eagle, which he called Caligula.
May 11, 2000 / Books & the Arts / John Leonard
The Intervention Blues The Intervention Blues
Perhaps one of the most fatuous theories ever promulgated was Francis Fukuyama's "End of History," put forth just as, in most parts of the world, history resumed its sanguinary p...
Apr 27, 2000 / Books & the Arts / Ian Williams
Hawking Vietnam Hawking Vietnam
With the twenty-fifth anniversary of the American withdrawal from Vietnam hard upon us, readers and viewers may well be treated to a multitude of reprises of the arguments surrou...
Apr 20, 2000 / Books & the Arts / Richard Falk
Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?
In Moby-Dick, in the chapter "The Fossil Whale," Ishmael proclaims: "To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme." The theme of Joyce Carol Oates's Blonde--well, it'...
Apr 20, 2000 / Books & the Arts / Lawrence Joseph
Reparting the Waters Reparting the Waters
It is delightfully ironic that a site has been approved for the construction of a monument in Martin Luther King Jr.'s name on the Washington Mall, given that in the last months ...
Apr 13, 2000 / Books & the Arts / Jason Sokol
Poetry Poetry
After Troy
Not quite putting on what little power or knowledge
pigeons lay claim to, she nonetheless bids them come.
Launched off cornices,
Apr 13, 2000 / Books & the Arts / Various Contributors
The Compleat Walker The Compleat Walker
Shortly before he died, Bruce Chatwin found God. This was on top of Mount Athos, after which he left for Katmandu. Looking down from the bees and grapes, he had seen an iron cros...
Apr 13, 2000 / Books & the Arts / John Leonard