Books and Ideas

Seducing the Sparrow (poem) Seducing the Sparrow (poem)

Why must the noble rose bristle before it blooms, and why must the frost declare allegiance to the dew? Don't tell me the robin's forlorn invit...

Nov 2, 2000 / Books & the Arts / Sam Hamill

Green Bee Green Bee

It was curled on the pavement, forehead to knees, as if it had died while bowing. Its stripes were citrine-yellow, and the black of a moonless starless, clea...

Nov 2, 2000 / Books & the Arts / Sharon Olds

Cloud After Auschwitz Cloud After Auschwitz

You have "little trace," exclaimed Gershom Scholem in a letter he sent to the great Jewish political philosopher Hannah Arendt, of "love for the Jewish people." It was the early ...

Oct 26, 2000 / Books & the Arts / Neve Gordon

Impeachment: Whose Stain? Impeachment: Whose Stain?

Impeachment trials have notably lacked drama or even importance. Often, they have been an anticlimax to the convulsive events that precipitated them. Andrew Johnson's trial exten...

Oct 26, 2000 / Books & the Arts / Stanley I. Kutler

In Our Orbit In Our Orbit

NO MIRTH IN THE BALANCE "Al Gore distills in his single person the disrepair of liberalism in America today, and almost every unalluring feature of the Democratic Party. He did ...

Oct 26, 2000 / Books & the Arts / The Editors

My Crow, Your Crow My Crow, Your Crow

Crow light: I call it that at dawn when one wing, then this other, bursts in flame, catching the sun's rising. The stupid bird, dipping his hunk of bread into the water, does...

Oct 26, 2000 / Books & the Arts / Peter Cooley

Misidentity Politics Misidentity Politics

The high point of liberal faith that the color line might be permanently breached may have been the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. From a participant's perspectiv...

Oct 19, 2000 / Books & the Arts / Stanley Aronowitz

Another ‘October Surprise’ Another ‘October Surprise’

Poor Anthony Summers--he writes a 600-page book on Nixon based on massive and exhaustive research, including interviews with a thousand people and 120 pages of documentation--and...

Oct 19, 2000 / Books & the Arts / Jon Wiener

The Kiss The Kiss

You may find reading Akhil Sharma's debut novel akin to having your head held underwater. Attendant with feelings of a relentless, choking panic, though, will be an almost preter...

Oct 19, 2000 / Books & the Arts / Amitava Kumar

Orient Expressed: Imagism Orient Expressed: Imagism

However varied their styles, poets writing in English today still rely on the early-twentieth-century Imagist principles of clarity, directness, presentative imagery and rhythm b...

Oct 12, 2000 / Books & the Arts / Grace Schulman

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