Category: Imported

doing in Vienna, Berlin, and London” (as SolotarofFwrites).nThe elements of that “desire and drive,” like so many innpublishing, are essentially paradoxical.nOn the one hand there is a need to shrink the Americannexperience and audience to the most manageable, localnlimits — “an important cultural role in New York.” On thenother, there is a sense of internationalism,...

minority, ethnic, and special-interest presses, ones thatnotherwise, lacking any solid base of marketplace support,nmight not survive. Nothing new in this kind of socialnengineering and fine-tuning. But the real problem ofngovernment support and nonsupport of the arts is morenknotty and gnarled. Perhaps fortunately, it as yet remainsnbeyond the power of government to do much more than...

American edition. “It was one of the more notable scandalsnsince Gutenberg started it all,” in the words of text critic JacknDalton. It included such famous misprints as the onendescribing Buck Mulligan on page 2: “He pointed his fingernin friendly jest and went over the parapet, laughing tonhimself.” In 1961, after a generation of mockery. RandomnHouse...

the Native was published in America, Harper removed annentire page to make it fit their format. Hardy later substantiallynrevised the text of the novel. Not only did his newnversion not show up on American bookshelves for a quarterncentury, but the American publisher kept on reprinting thentruncated version. Winston Churchill substantially revisednhis History of the Second...

‘«,'< ^7 Rudolph ScbirmernChesterton ^ ” ‘• ‘-‘•’n”.«’ < IV ‘ :^’* ”^nCombustion — Lord, how it delights andnCherubic rose with papal crimson blent’nfires, *.’nf Surprises too, for I had not supposednMy own incorporation possiblenIn this candescent metamorphosis,ni^nA never willed or even fancied end—nExcept for heretics, with whom. Lord knows,n^ “”””nI broke some lances past...

there’s also cronydom, the unwillingness to criticize a fellowncelebrity journalist, especially when it’s his word against thatnof the grieving widow of the late CIA director. Or maybenMartin is simply imbued with the modern notion that everynbit of journalism must be balanced: a quibble here, yes, butnoh, the merits . . .nPoor, benighted book reviewing—it’s been...

with calumny there will be found reviewers to calumniate,”nhe wrote in Biographia Literaria. Many of these attacks hadna political basis. One of the reasons for the EdinburghnReview’s critiques of Wordsworth and Coleridge and evennits friend and contributor Walter Scott was political; thenReview was Whig, and they were Tories. When the TorynBlackwood’s Magazine awarded Keats a...

him that Nietzsche had gone mad upon seeing a driver beatnhis horse.nFew people had ever been more suspicious of writers’nunions (in the East often peopled by Tacic-approved hacks)nthan I, a so-called dissident writer and a samizdat publisher.nThe Writers’ Club in No. 7 French Street, where Belgrade’snrich and famous could sip spritzers and eat the best...

Committee, there are the Atwoods, Doctorows, Mailers,nand others, contaminating any effort at genuine being.nWhen I drank a can of Guinness with Hugh Poulton in hisnrun-down London apartment I was fairly sure I’d never seenhim on a snapshot of anything glitzy. An Amnesty Internationalnresearcher, Poulton was interested in fine, graylyshadednthings, hard to scream out by a...

writer. It doesn’t really help the editor a lot, either: the samenamount of garbage and number of masterpieces will come innthe mail no matter how much submittors study the guidelines.nWorse than any of these curses on submittors is The BignChill: that two-to-3 6-month void which occurs between thendate on which you send a submission to...

alma mater. They show the litmag to friends and try to getnthem to subscribe. Out of sheer appreciation and a starvingnneed for literary intercourse, they send Christmas cards andnnewspaper clippings to editors who have never written themnmore than a brief critical note.nOtherwise-normal human beings turn independent-pressneditor or publisher for one very uncomplicated reason:nbecause it sounds...

Covert Cadre: Inside the Institutenfor Policy Studiesnby S. Steven PowellnOttawa, IL: Green Hill PublishersnIcane Kirkpatrick has given us twonuseful ways to think about that segentnof the American intelligentsia thatncontinuously finds fault with virtuallyneverything this country does: they arenthe “blame America first” crowd andnthe believers in “moral equivalency.”nAfter reading S. Steven Powell’s penetratingnstudy, Covert Cadre: Inside...

they are reformers: to reform is tonimprove, and there is almost nothing innAmerican society that IPS wishes tonimprove upon. They prefer to ruin, notnrectify.nThe key players in IPS history testifynto its radical status. Richard Barnet,nfor example, was invited by Hanoinduring the height of the Vietnam Warnto give credence to the Communistncause. He openly said he...

committees of the House and Senate.nMoreover, some congressmen and senatorsnspeak at IPS functions, somenpermit the organization to schedulentrips for them to places like Nicaragua,nothers make space available in theirnchambers for conferences, and manynmore solicit budget studies from thenInstitute. And to top it off, presidentialncandidate Jesse Jackson regularly availsnhimself of IPS advisors.nIt is testimony to the...

Pacepa’s book understandably concentratesnon aspects of Romanian devilrynwhich are of interest to Americannreaders. One of these is Ceausescu’snflirtation with Qaddafi, when the Libyannwas overflowing with oil revenues.nThe crafty Romanian president managednto wheedle promises of Libyannmoney to finance no less than three oilnrefineries along the Black Sea shoreline.nCeausescu also extracted Libyannfunds to construct a whole series...

misguided history as a species. They arennot—as Freud, for example, assumedn— the very essence of the human condition,nbut rather the results of ourndeviation from the laws of nature. Thenquest to understand both human naturenand human beings’ denial of it leadsnFleming from political theory to sociobiology,nfrom the record of how wenhave imagined ourselves and our communitiesnto...

are occasional errors the main problem.nFleming, doubtless suffering the intellectualnostracism of the academy, had tonwork for long stretches without benefitnof a research library or research assistance.nThese situational liabilities unavoidablynleave their mark on his sweepingnforay through political theory,nsociobiology, psychology, and contemporarynlife, occasionally giving his booknthe voice of one who has been instructingnand talking to himself In...

sion and competition has been moldednand even displaced with the developmentnof civilization. He is less willing tonconsider the ways in which civilizationnhas molded women. To be sure, hendraws upon the work of Carol Gilligannto argue the case for women’s discretenmoral sense. But he, like Gilligan, nevernconsiders that that moral sense derivesnfrom the experience of contemporarynwhite,...

not be possible at all, but he gets awaynwith:nIt has been three years, now.nThere has been no sign ofnthe groundhog.nI stood there in thenwhirling summer.nMy hand capped a witherednheart.nAnd thought of China andnof Greece,nOf Alexander in his tent;nOf Montaigne in his tower,nOf Saint Theresa in hernwild lament.nIs it because I read this in the eleventhngrade...

Letter From Albionnby Andrei NavrozovnThe Banality of FictionnIt’s Sunday morning in London. ThenSunday Times is here. (Yes, we toonhave a Sunday Times.) The “Week innReview” section is nice and fat. (Yes,nit’s nice and fat here, too.) Headline:n”End Game: Why the Soviets arenpulling out of Afghanistan.” Photo ofnNajibullah, photo of Gorbachev, photonof two smiling soldiers. Read-out,...

One begins to understand TomnWolfe’s passion for exactitude, even ifnit means knowing a character by thenprice of his suit. Whatever its othernmerits, The Bonfire of the Vanities is anrare event on the literary scene becausenit is accurate. Yet what a storm ofncritical controversy have Wolfe’s pricenlists unleashed! Brand names, dialects,nprices are too close to the...

where their copies (the original marblenpieces are now housed in the Louvre)nadorn the western gates of the TuileriesnGardens and the start of the Champs-nElysees on the other side of the Placende la Concorde.nThe revolutionaries of 1789 alsondecided to demolish the equestriannstatue of Louis XV, which used tongrace the center of what was thenncalled the Place...

The story has something to do withna resistance movement against a Confederacynthat looks rather like SouthnAfrica. President Lee apparently freednthe slaves in the 1870’s, but signs stillnsay things like “Whites Only BeyondnThis Point.” (The Great Emancipatornwas the first President Lee. The currentnpresident, a woman, is a Lee, too.)nComing in at issue #11 as I did...

THE ACADEMYnWho Is PetenSchaub?nby Nicholas DavidsonnWhen Pete Schaub, a businessnmajor in his senior year at thenUniversity of Washington at Seattle,ncouldn’t get into an overenroUed businessncourse for the first quarter of 1988,nhe signed up for “Women 200: Introductionnto Women Studies” instead.nHe was expecting to learn about “thenhistory of women and the contributionsnthat they have made,” as...

that occurred after a class in whichnDanaMichele asserted that US governmentnstatistics showed that lesbiansncould raise children better than marriedncouples could. Schaub says that hensimply asked her if he could have thensource.n”I asked after class, even,” he says. “Indidn’t want to look like I was challengingnher. I just said, ‘I couldn’t writenquick enough — I’m wondering...

story on national television shows andnis planning legal action, though it is notnyet clear where he will find the necessarynfunding. (The Women StudiesnDepartment will automatically be defendednin any lawsuit by the statenattorney general’s office, with access tonpublic funds.)nWas the way “Introduction tonWomen Studies” was taught last yearnunusual? Greg Adams, who took thencourse in the fall...

Smiles to herself.nAuntie Rula says it doesn’t looknright, a girl eating sausage on the street.nShe doesn’t know how it helps mynpoems:nKnockwurst, blutwurst,nKnocking on a heartnReady to burst.nSensation sweet,nLove’s ache keener.nI only know it,nEating wieners.nShe sits and tats.nStrange to be writing poetry in thenmidst of so much violence. A war’snbroken out: Bulgaria, Greece, andnMontenegro have attacked...

details: you have a manuscript, you getnthe manuscript printed, you try to sellnthe book. Money is the determiningnfactor all along the way, but it becomesndominant at the distribution end. Thenbig guys have a very expensive systemnin place: a network of salesmen whoncover limited territories, representing, ifnit is a really large publisher, only it.nThe books are...

poetry magazines in their stock thanneither read or buy them. There arenmore people writing poetry than readingnit.nMy own experience is a good casenhistory. I was a member of The IrishnAmerican Cultural Project in NewnYork, and over the years we talkednabout having a magazine to complementnthe musical part of the project.nWe believed there were many IrishnAmericans...

How to takenthe mysterynout of economicsnNow Clarence Carson makes it all clear — even makesnit interestingnWarmed-over socialism is the view we get in the media these days … in most of our schools … in thenmainline churches . . . and in most of the pronouncements from the floor of Congress. Why are the correctnprinciples...

41 CHRONICLESnHumanities in America, the NationalnEndowment for the Humanities’nlatest report to the nation, is like one ofnthose good news/bad news jokes thatnused to be so popular. The good news,naccording to NEH Director LynnenCheney, is the mounting evidence forn”the opportunities for learning andnreflection that have burgeoned in ournsociety in the past decade or so—andnthe enthusiastic response...

or pariishioners to stay away, complainnto the press that this is no way tonportray Christ, but thank heaven thatn(as Clint Eastwood told some reporters)nit’) a free country, and that MartinnScorsese is free to make a bad andnboring movie.nBe aware, too, that The Last Temptationnwould have died in release ifncertain Christians had not made such anfuss...

BI CHRONICLESnPERSPECTIVEnTHE DANGEROUS MYTHnOF HUMAN RIGHTS by Thomas FlemingnEven if I had done all the things the prosecution says Indid, I would still not be guilty of any crime, because Inam fighting against colonialism. We have heard suchnarguments in recent years from a variety of sources: IRAnbombers, African National Congress supporters (bishopsnand • necklacers), and...

get the idea that these sovereign United States were boundnto respect some standard of political morality invented bynprofessors of international law?nConsider the following flights of fancy, all of themnasserting the dignity of international law:n1) “Genocide means . . . causing serious bodily ornmental harm to members of the group. . . . Personsncharged with genocide...

81 CHROMICLESnstate of nature even conceivable? Can our distant ancestorsnhave bound us to any agreement they might have made?nCan anyone imagine any circumstance under which anyngroup of men would voluntarily and unanimously surrenderntheir liberties? Recognizing the absurdity of the myth, thenmost prominent living natural rights philosopher reduces thenstory to a hypothetical “original position” in which...

“SHOULD BE ON THE MUST-READ LISIS OFnTHOSE WHO SHUDDER AT…MANIPULATIONnBY SURREPTITIOUS SOVIET FAQIONS”n—Arnaud de Borchgrave, author, THE SPIKEn”Powell has performed a publicnservice b[; blowing the cover offnthe Institute for Policy Studies…nlikely to be one of the mostnimportant books to appear thisnyear.”n-NATIONAL REVIEWn”Provides chilling documentationnof the Institute’s connections withnthe KGB and its sponsoring ofnsuch front groups...

A Special Holiday TraditionnJust complete and mail the adjoining postage-paidnorder card, or use this coupon. We’ll promptly sendneach recipient an elegant gift card in your name.nGive Chronicles – and celebrate a delightfulnholiday tradition by giving those on your list 12nmonths of reading pleasure!n4f:inTO ORDER BY PHONEnCALL TOLL-FREE 1-800-435-0715n(ILLINOIS RESIDENTS 1-800-892-0753)nrnYES! Please enter the following 12-month...

121 CHRONICLESnup too often in our ventures abroad. Sometimes moralismncoexists with national interest, but the difference is neverthelessnvast, and moralism often has an antithetical effect uponnwhat is best for the US.nIt is very much in the spirit of moralism that Congressnmakes diplomatic, economic, and psychological war onnSouth Africa. We are unabashed by the fact that...

moralism in domestic affairs. No Western country equals thenUS in the moralistic approach to human behavior: sex,nliquor, gambling, reproduction, and now, life-threateningly,ndrugs, among others. Characteristically, we employ thenverbiage of war in our domestic encounters with socialnproblems. It’s forever war: against poverty, illiteracy, environmentalnpollution, drugs, abortion. We invoked thensovereign state in our war against alcohol 70...

certain length of time, custom would change the vile,nimperfect brute into a New Man.nTo bring into existence all these new structures, a newnorder of lay monks was to be founded, whose task would bento create the New Man—by knout, iron, and blood, ifnnecessary. Only demiurges with steel nerves could belong tonthis order, obliged as they...

We are now witnessing the last phase of the EasternnEuropean totalitarian state, with the governing bodies innPoland, Hungary, or Yugoslavia no longer demanding of thengoverned to believe in the discourse of the Grand Idea, butnsimply to maintain the pretense of doing so. Faced with andouble image of the world and impelled by instinct fornself-preservation, the...

tS I CHRONICLESnthat a centralized bureaucratic state had grown in size whilencompeting sectors of the haute bourgeoisie struggled fornsocial dominance. His descriptions of the etat centralisateurnparallel those of Alexis de Tocqueville.nGenerally, great histories that combine literary excellencenand tragic sensitivity with extensive research are less likely toncome out of academic history departments than from mennof letters....

exotica.” In the early 70’s Hobsbawm noted that academicnradicals admired communist societies in proportion tontheir geographical or cultural distance from the Westernnexperience.nA point sometimes heard is that historians used to try fornobjectivity but no longer do. Though this may be true, therenare deeper problems with the current academic historiography.nIt is tiresome and—to use a still...

Union had to decide for himself whether to adhere to hisnstate or to his Nation; and I finally assert that whichever waynhe decided, if only he decided honestly, putting self-interestnbehind him, he decided right.”nIn another expression of the tragic sense, WinstonnChurchill, in his closing volume on the Second World War,nremarks that the cost of ridding...

menace regardless of its record. The Soviet leadership hasnan ideology and thus a mission. We only have a Constitutionnas a mere frame, with no picture in it. The Communistsnhave a picture, which attracts millions outside the USSR,nincluding willing collaborators from the highest social ranksnof the half-educated. Even a wicked picture is better thannnone.nTalking frequently to...

human being, in his younger years at least, can dream of anfull life without a fairly concrete vision of what he wants tonbecome, to achieve, to represent, and of the world he wantsnto inhabit. No nation can organically survive withoutnenvisioning a specific role, a real task, an honorable mission.nWhat will we in the Western world...

religious and metaphysicalnassumptions . . . can there be annonarbitrary basis for makingnmoral judgments? Without anpositive answer to this question,nliberalism must self-destruct as ancoherent moral ideology.nLiberalism’s attempts to give a positivenanswer have never provided an adequatenmotive for individual moralndecision-making, and they have failed tonsatisfy philosophers as a coherent basisnfor social action. Omitting Kant, thenmost famous...

26 j CHRONICLESnBy absence, he comes again.nThe handing down of the torch ofnhuman understanding is a risky business.nEach generation may drop it ornrun off in a direction that ends in ancul-de-sac. There is more. Each generationnleaves to its successors problemsnwithin the tradition that are unresolved.nOther traditions will arise and a choicenmust be made between running...

281 CHRONICLESntime one has slogged through thisnhands-off-everything recital of dollar diplomacynone cannot help being leftnwith a certain gratitude for US interventionsnon behalf of its borders and threatenednnationals. After all, Russia doesnnot have a hostile island arsenal 90 milesnoff its shores, nor do we indict Japan fornoverseas capital accumulations (innAmerica, no less).nImperialism turns into a merenbuzzword,...

For Mei Lin, On Our Twenty-SecondnWedding Anniversarynby Frederick TurnernWhen you were twenty-two a messenger,nWho said a king had sent him, came to you,nSet in your hands a book before you werenReady to answer him, what you would do;nAnd said the book was strange as it was rare.nAnd she that opened it must first be surenOf...