The title of this book is misleading. Karen Gerard’s subject is one city. New York, and the “scenes” she discusses are random sketches of New York’s political, economic, and cultural life. Gerard, former deputy mayor of New York under Edward Koch, writes like a politician: her style is largely anecdotal, and the book meanders tourist-like...
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October 1, 1985July 26, 2022Reviews
Smashing “Ugly Monuments”
Adler begins his latest book with Aristotle’s admonition: “The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousandfold.” Adler concludes with a recommendation: “The recovery of basic truths, long hidden from view, would eradicate errors that have such disastrous consequences in modern times.” For 10 delightfully lucid chapters in between, he uncovers and...
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July 1, 1985April 21, 2022Bookshelves
Troubled New Women
Megan Marshall: The Cost of Loving: Women and the New Fear of Intimacy; G. P. Putnam’s Sons; New York; $14.95. Megan Marshall’s book attests to the resiliency of nature and common sense in human affairs. The Cost of Loving is a chapter in the rise and fall of the feminist ideology. Feminism, like many ideologies, had (Marshall uses the past tense) the characteristics...