of the moment, but in the sense thatnthey give any intelligent reader food fornthought about his own times.nThese virtues are all splendidly marshalednin Requiem, the McDonalds’ncollection of occasional pieces on thenearly years of the American federalnrepublic. Each of the 11 essays takes upna familiar and problematic queshon ofnthose days — Shays’ Rebellion, JohnnDickinson, the “middle...

patients in public mental hospitals innthe early 60’s. During the next decade,nfour of every five would be released.nThis is what that word is all about.n”Deinstitutionalization,” says Torrey,n”which originally implied services,nfollow-up, and aftercare, has insteadnbeen an act of dumping unpreparednpatients into unwilling and unreadyncommunities.” The community healthncenters, rather than attempting to carenfor the depressing, seriously ill...

meant by “individual rights” shouldninclude the right to private ownership.nIn Austria, however, this right is severelyncurtailed: banks and heavy industrynare largely nationalized, and, no lessnimportant, radio and television arenstate-owned — both serious marksnagainst the country’s record on individualnfreedom.nThe article on “The Interrelationshipnof Freedom, Equality, and Development”nby Harmon Zeigler, a professornof politics and government at thenUniversity...

OPINIONSnProdigal Sonnby Fred Chappelln’Children begin by loving their parents. After a time they judge them. Rarely, ifnever, do they forgive them.”n— Oscar WildenCollected Poemsnby Louis SimpsonnNew York: Paragon House;n416 pp., $24.95nLouis Simpson stands as an easynexample of the poet divided,nwhose best talents and strongest predilectionsnare at odds with one another.nHe takes Walt Whitman as spiritualnfather...

The Deconstructive Lyricnby Paul Ramseyn”Poetry is certainly something more than good sense, but it must be goodnsense . . . just as a palace is more than a house, but it must be a house.”n— Samuel Taylor ColeridgenSelected Poems II: Poems Selectedn& New 1976-1986nby Margaret AtwoodnNew York and Boston: HoughtonnMifflin; 158 pp., $16.95 (cloth),n$9.95 (paper)nDon’t...

Burned but NevernConsumednby Arthur EcksteinnThe Burning Bush: Anti-Semitismnand World Historynby Barnet LitvinoffnNew York: E.P. Button;n457 pp., $22.50nThe first writer known to have madenthe outrageous accusation of ritualncannibalism against the Jews was anpagan Greek named Apion. But it wasnthe Christians who established prejudicenagainst and hatred for Jews as a fixturenof Western civilization. The Christians’nanimus against the...

expulsion of that non-Jewish population,nin the name of Jewish “purity.”nIn LitvinofFs view, in fact, there isnonly one region in the entire worldnwhere the Jews have actually been ablento attain peace and almost total fulfillment:nin America. LitvinofF rightlynemphasizes that Jewish upward mobilitynand the ease of Jewish merging intonthe mainstream of American life wasnfacilitated most by two...

to tent-show revivalism in three novels:nit is not hard to see that Garrett wasnbreaking new ground for himself withneach book, moving from locale tonlocale, situation to situation. Along thenway he was also finding new forms fornhis fiction, and Dillard is at his bestnwhen he explains what happened duringnthe writing of Garrett’s majornworks to date, the...

As for Maslow’s other need —n”belongingness” — Murray maintainsnthat this is best achieved through thenother enabling conditions. He quitenrightly insists that the “little platoons”nof work, family, and communityn(church should have been added) formn”the nexus within which the pursuit ofnhappiness is worked out.”nMurray wants to challenge the conventionalnthinking in social policy analysis,nand he is most persuasive...

ture, are central to the curriculum.nHowever much Arabs and Palestiniansnin particular view the United Statesnas Israel’s sugar daddy, it is still truenthat the American way of undergraduateneducation commands admiration.nThe historical record is a distinguishednone, including the American Universitynof Beirut, the American Universitynin Cairo, and the University of Petroleumnand Minerals in Dhahran, SaudinArabia, to name only...

Lynch, a former beauty queen at WakenForest University and the niece ofnNorth Carolina’s first woman SupremenCourt justice. Although Susie seemednan unlikely suspect in murders involvingnher own parents as well as membersnof the Lynch family, there werensome puzzling circumstances. Fromnchildhood Susie had been an impetuousnand high-strung girl, prone tonsudden outbursts of rage. At the age ofn24,...

OPINIONSnRecreating the Epicnby Burton RafFeln”And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into hisnnostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.”n— Genesis 2.7nGenesis: An Epic Poemnby Frederick TurnernDallas: The Saybrook Press; 303 pp.,n$19.95 (cloth), $9.95 (paper)nThe 19th century had an unfortunatenpassion for novels in verse. Inhave...

The Hermit of 69th Streetnby Jerzy KosinskinNew York: Seaver Books (Henry Holtn& Co.); $19.95nIn 1982 The Village Voice publishednan article accusing the famous Polishnemigre writer Jerzy Kosinski of being anfraud. The authors (Geoffrey Stokesnand Eliot Fremont-Smith) argued thatnKosinski’s novels had all received extensivenand unacknowledged “help”nfrom various editorial assistants; thatnKosinski’s most famous novel, ThenPainted Bird (1965),...

hated the politicians who sent themnthere, marveled at advances in modernntechnology, such as steamship refrigerationnthat, as an editorial in the NewnOrieans Picayune put it, yielded “cattlenturned into gold,” and looked forwardnto a future of limitless prosperity andnwealth. All in all, they were rather likenus: living, eating, drinking, and marrying,neven on the day that God sent...

hash. Suppose we declare that keepingnhistory’s record, including the presentnvolume, is also an arbitrarily chosennstructure; why should one then remembernwhat Michel Foucault said,nlectured, or wrote in the meaninglessnsuccession of ticked-ofF zero times?nThomas Molnar is the author of ThenPagan Temptation.nA LiterarynProctologynby Tommy W. RogersnWith All My Mightnby Erskine CaldwellnAtlanta: Peachtree Publishers, Ltd.n382 pp., $19.95na M y...

gious South. He had seen enoughnabominable living conditions and desperationnto be obsequious to thenSouth’s agricultural satraps. And henhad no underlying philosophic ideal tonanchor his observations within annAgrarian renascence. Viewing thenworld as a mine for his short stories andnnovels, he described the landless, ill,npoverty-stricken Southerners of thenbare hovels on Tobacco Road asnpathetic people, most of themnbeing...

Piping Hotnby Thomas McGoniglenHot Typenedited by John Miller, Heidi Benson,nCynthia Koral, and Randall KoralnNew York: Collier Books;n235 pp., $7.95nConcocted by four editors of somethingncalled Equator magazine (Inam told it is a large glossy tabloid of oddnpeople doing odd things), Hot Type’snsubtitle is: “Our Most CelebratednWriters Introduce the Next Word innContemporary American Fiction.” Onnthe basis of...

The Southern Mythnby Benjamin B. AlexandernThe Lytle/Tate Letters:nThe Correspondence ofnAndrew Lytle and Allen Tatenedited by Thomas Daniel Youngnand Elizabeth SarconenJackson and London: University Pressnof Mississippi; 374 pp., $37.50nSoutherners and Europeans:nEssays in a Time of Disordernby Andrew LytlenBaton Rouge and London:nLouisiana State University Press;n308 pp., $32.50nAndrew Lytle and Allen Tate, twonof the original Vanderbilt Agrarians,nmaintained a...

Red Horizonsnby Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai PacepanChicago: Regnery GatewaynIt is no surprise that there are annumber of mysteries about this book.nThe author was the deputy director ofnthe Romanian Foreign IntelhgencenService; for reasons that he does notncare to explain, he defected to the USAnin July 1978. Was he a deep-covernAmerican agent? Just before he defected,nhe says,...

The Politics of Human Naturenby Thomas Flemingnl^ew Brunswick, NJ: TransactionnBooks; 276 pp.,n$29.95nIn The Politics of Human Nature,nThomas Fleming has boldly undertakennto delineate a system of naturalnpolitics. A classicist by training, Flemingnbelieves that “the collapse of Romannauthority in the West created ancrisis from which political thinking hasnnever quite recovered.” Since that collapse,nthe vision of the lost...

Inspiration andnCraftnby David R. SlavittnCollected Poems 1930-1986nby Richard EberhartnNew York: Oxford UniversitynPress; $29.95nNew and Collected Poemsnby Richard WilburnNew York: Harcourt BracenJovanovich; $27.95na T ake these two books,” is annentirely arbitrary prompting bynan editor who happened to have themnaround on a shelf. Willy-nilly, here theynare together, and one looks at them,nshuffling through the poems, some familiarnand...

way. One of the few good things aboutnthe lit biz is that it’s only the good stuffnthat matters; the rest is forgotten quicklynenough.nThe work of both these men, howeverndissimilar and even contradictorynin origin and impulse, is likely tonremain with us for a long time.nDavid R. Slavitt is a poet living innPhiladelphia.nAn American Burkenby Paul T....

The SecularnImaginationnby Gregory J. SullivannLionel Trillingnby Stephen L. TannernBoston: Twayne PublishersnUnder the tyranny of ideology thatnis a grim fact of contemporary lifenin university English departments, it isntempting to reflect on the career ofnLionel Trilling (1905-1975) with annuncritical wistfulness. It is to StephennTanner’s credit that his astute and balancednintroductory study resists such antemptation; for however much...

241 CHRONICLESnOPINIONSnTradition and Justice by E. Christian KopffnWe have forgotten the origin of morality in factnand circumstance.n—Wendell BerrynWhose Justice? WhichnRationaUty? by AlasdairnMaclntyre, Notre Dame:nUniversity of Notre Dame Press.nAlasdair Maclntyre is our most relentlessntracker of the crisis of thenliberal regime. In After Virtue, henrecounted the history of the triumph ofn”emotivism” in ethics. In Whose Justice?nWhich Rationality?...

Socialism and Reality in Central Americanby Geoffrey WagnernIt is good also not to try experiments in states.n— Francis BaconnImperial State and Revolution:nThe United States and Cuba,n1952-1986 hy Morris H. Morley,nNew York: Cambridge UniversitynPress.nThe Grand Strategy of the UnitednStates in Latin America by Tom J.nFarer, New Brunswick, NJ:nTransaction Books.nThe Bear in the Backyard:nMoscow’s Caribbean Strategy bynTimothy...

Children of Fortunenby Paul T. HornaknEach social class has its own pathology.nOld Money: The Mythology ofnAmerica’s Upper Class by NelsonnW. Aldrich Jr., New York: AlfrednA. Knopf.nGoing by the tide and subtitle alone, itnwould appear that this is either a booknabout the lies rich people tell eachnother, or a book transforming the jinglenof coins into the...

301 CHRONICLESntime, yields superman.nAldrich surely does not intend suchna conclusion, for he betrays a complicatednsensibility in attributing his ownnnoblesse oblige to something callednpietas. I would like very much tondefine what he means by the word, butnonce again poetry works against him.nDescribing its effects — a reverence forngrandparents, a sense of history, anvague belief in eternal...

Kirk’s lectures are masterpieces innprinted form, the reader can easilynrecognize they were intended for a livenaudience. Like his previous collectionnof Heritage lectures, Reclaiming a Patrimony,nthis assemblage has a theme:nall is not lost. Departing from the viewnof his old friend Richard M. Weaver,nKirk holds that in the dark tunnel,nsome light glimmers, however dim.nThrough his many seminars...

341 CHROHICLESntheir territories and interests; and evenntrue in a larger sense that capitalism isnone of the factors that have providednWestern civilization with its dynamismnover the last 500 years. But neitherncapitalism as an economic system nornthe West as a civilization has beennunique in this respect. World history isnlargely military history, from the dawnnof time until the...

361 CHRONICLBSnPound, and Edith Sitwell.nBlunden served in the Royal SussexnRegiment during the Great War, survivingntwo years at the front and winningnthe Military Cross for bravery. Henendured and suffered as much as hisnfellow “war poets,” but Blunden, unlikenmany of the others who fell intonbitterness, admired both his battalionncommander and his wartime sergeant.nMoreover, he remained a patriot,...

betraying his abolitionist heritage, but itncould be said that he was honoringnMajor Butler’s legacy—a legacy notnonly of wealth, but of conflict.nBell’s tracing of that legacy is artfulnin its weaving of the fortunes of thenfamily and slavery. Yet one must recognizenthat this big book of nearly 700npages tells and analyzes only part of thenstory.nThere is more...

381 CHRONICLESnAfter 20 years of one party rule, fromn1923-43, it seemed to rebound intonvirtual chaos. There have been 46 governmentsnsince World War II, not tonmention the terrorism of the past twondecades. Yale Professor Joseph La-nPalombara has written Democracy ItaliannStyle to remind us that Italy is a realnsuccess story.nFar from being chaotic, Italy’s governmentnis too stable....

man was social by nature, that reasonnhad precedence over will, and manncould comprehend, within limits, annordered, intelligible universe. Whennthis view is related to politics and thenswirl of revolutionary claims to naturalnrights, certain conclusions must follow.nThe French philosophes came forwardnwith radical democratic theses, championingnindividual natural rights andnpopular sovereignty. Burke’s politicsncame into relief as opposed to suchnradical...

place where one can keep one’snfurniture and other possessions.nHomelessness is life withoutnone’s own home.nThe articles in the policy and programnsection provide even less guidancenthan the “descriptive” pieces. Theirnauthors are either urban planners, housingnauthorities, architects, or politicians.nHence there is no discussion of deinstitutionalizationnof the mentally 01,nalcoholism, or family dissolution—allnmajor issues in homelessness.nThe policy section is much...

which they are encouraged to discovernand promote their own feelings andnwishes — in some manuals and seminarsnalmost as if this were an ideal orngoal in life.”nHaven Bradford Gow is the WilburnFoundation literary fellow and lives innArlington Heights, Illinois.nPrayer by Numbersnby Bryce ChristensennThe Future of Religion: Secularization,nRevival, and Cult Formationnby Rodney Stark andnWilliam Sims Bainbridge, Berkeley:nUniversity...

421 CHRONICLESn”either you understand the science ofnMarxism as I do, accept it, and apply it,nor else see me after class to discuss yournlearning disability.”nSome American history books willn”spare little ink on Communism, itsnnature, or its history in practice,” warnsnHewitt. Quite. Students may even encounternpopular American history textsnsuch as Marxist historian HowardnZinn’s A People’s History of...

22 / CHRONICLESnCrackers & RoundheadsnThe Celt in all his variants from Builthnto Ballyhoo^nHis mental processes are plain — onenknows what he will do,nAnd can logically predicate his finishnby his start.n— KiplingnCracker Culture: Celtic Ways innthe Old South by GradynMcWhiney, Tuscaloosa andnLondon: University of AlabamanPress.nDespite all that has passed since, thenCivil War is still at the...

of which is that the South has been atnthe same time more aristocratic andnmore populist than any other part ofnAmerica. It thus has remained an incomprehensiblenproblem for thosenwhose imaginations are circumscribednby urban middle-class proprieties. Thisnincludes nearly all American historians,nmany of whom flunked marketing andncivil engineering because they lackednthe necessary imagination and sonturned to scholarship. (The...

Brezhnev had good reason to boast at anmeeting of Communist Parties innPrague in 1973, at the height of thenNixon-Kissinger detente policy:nWe have been able to achievenmore in a short time withndetente than was done for yearsnpursuing a confrontation policynwith NATO Trust us,nComrades, for by 1985, as anconsequence of what we arennow achieving withndetente … we...

experience cosmic consciousness, sexualnexcitement, and “this curious sensenthat you’re actually being transformednliterally into an animal”:nYou start getting fantasies — Inmean, of power, lion-like power.n… Of course, this wasnmadness, you see, but thenrelationship between the ecstasynand madness is . . . one of thenthings that the headshrinkersnknow. … I woke up on thenmorning . . ....

321 CHRONICLESnSaint Williamnby John C. ChalbergnWilliam F. Buckley, Jr.: PatronnSaint of the Conservatives by JohnnB. Judis, New York: Simon &nSchuster.nSaint William? A canonization has occurrednwithout prior beatification. A stillnliving and breathing William F.nBuckley Jr. has been elevated to sainthood.nAnd by whom? Not by the popenand not by Buckley’s own flock, but byna man of the...

Patron saints seldom dirty theirnhands by campaigning for themselvesnor organizing campaigns for others.nThey may exhort their flock, but theynare not much for actually marshalingnthe troops. Buckley has never shiednaway from his own “firing line,” butnwas kept on the sidelines by the Goldwaternbrain trust and remained apartnfrom all three Reagan presidentialndrives. In between there was Nixon,nwhom...

341 CHRONICLESnMontgomery calls a “second generationnFugitive-Agrarian”) have termednNominalism. Montgomery concludesnthat the Southerner is “by nature annantinominalist,” demonstrating hisnantinominalism no more plainly thannwhen he begins his recipe for possumnwith the instruction: “First, catch anpossum.” But this antinominalism isnnot merely the result of a desire fornprecise instruction in the doing of anthing. Antinominalism — as the referencento...

ten by a liberal historian who startednout believing that Alger Hiss was innocentnand ended up convinced of hisnguilt. It knocked the stuffing out ofnHiss, to say nothing of his dwindlingnband of Stalinoid loyalists. (The factnthat in Recollections Hiss has next tonnothing to say about Weinstein is morenrevealing than anything else about thenbook.)nThe other thing that...

361 CHRONICLESnUnited States and Mexico. This isnfollowed by a three-chapter descriptionnof the civil and criminal legal structurenof California both as actually practicednand as viewed from the local level.nNext he details how Anglo-Americansnin California were treated by the law.nThese sections will be of considerableninterest to historians.nThe third part of the book deals withnthe conflicts between Anglo...

and defiantly classical. His masterpiecesn(like the Sherman monument in frontnof the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan or thenDiana that once stood on the pinnaclenof the old Madison Square Garden) cannhardly be understood without an appreciationnof their classical roots. As BasilnGildersleeve told his Virginia audiencenin 1908, “I too would plead for annhonest American literature, a literaturenof the...

381 CHRONICLESnwonderful sketch of the two Natashasncoming from who-knows-where to thenspontaneous party at the PushkinnHouse, Lyova’s place of employment.nTheir hair wrapped in gauze, they sitnbeside each other on a worn-out sofanpretending not to know why they arenthere and absolutely refusing to takenvodka; instead, they drink their teanfrom the saucers. Bitov would havendone better to trust...

Wells. All fell before his happy dialectic.nChesterton also had a great impactnon the subject of evolution. He opposednDarwinism as a philosophy. This distinctionnbetween the philosophy ofnevolution and the mechanics of evolutionnmust be kept clear. As Chestertonnwrote: “If evolution simply means thatna positive thing called an ape turnednvery slowly into a positive thing callednman, it is...

401 CHRONICLESnman have the right, or the duty, tondisobey orders he knows to be harmingnhis own country’s war effort? Flight ofnthe Intruder, unlike so many aerialnsagas, isn’t in trouble when on thenground — or inside its protagonist’snhead, as he ponders the morality ofnbombing.nWhat you try to do, Jakenthought, is to keep it fuzzy innyour mind...

turns acrimonious; they do not allownpolitics to dominate their lives, or theirnlove. The young couple were firstncousins who had met when Agnes wasna young girl of nine and Olaf was 17.nAgnes went home to Australia and didnnot visit England again until she wasn19, but Olaf had retained vivid memoriesnof that earlier visit and was soon...