Description of a Struggle Description of a Struggle
"You cannot take a man who was all struggle," wrote Tolstoy of Dostoyevsky, after his great rival's death, "and set him up on a monument for the instruction of posterity."
May 27, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Tim Parks
Top Gun Top Gun
Of the making of many books about Abraham Lincoln there is no end.
May 27, 2004 / Books & the Arts / James M. McPherson
Wild at Heart Wild at Heart
In 1947 Saul Bellow published a novel called The Victim in which a derelict character named Kirby Allbee haunts another named Asa Leventhal, claiming that Leventhal is responsibl...
May 27, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Vivian Gornick
The African Predicament The African Predicament
Howard French has written a passionate, heartbreaking and ultimately heartbroken book about covering West Africa's blood-soaked descent into a nightmare of war and greed as a rep...
May 27, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Deborah Scroggins
Where the Wild Things Are Where the Wild Things Are
There's a temptation to begin with death. The dark title of A.S. Byatt's Little Black Book of Stories suggests it; the phrase is also a riposte to D.H.
May 27, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Maria Margaronis
Diversity and Its Discontents Diversity and Its Discontents
For most of his half-century-long career, Samuel Huntington, professor of government at Harvard, has made a point of telling the US ruling elite what it has most wanted to hear.
May 27, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Daniel Lazare
Truly, Madly, Deeply Truly, Madly, Deeply
It's only a little fughetta in C minor, a piece J.S. Bach wrote into a notebook he was keeping for the purpose of teaching his eldest son.
May 27, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Paul Griffiths
The Maharani of Muck The Maharani of Muck
Perched elegantly on an exotic throw pillow in her seaside Bombay apartment, the Arabian Sea breeze gently ruffling her long black hair, Shobhaa De looks like one of the seductre...
May 27, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Miranda Kennedy
Slow Motion Slow Motion
The Justice Department recently announced its intention to reopen the Emmett Till case.
May 27, 2004 / Column / Patricia J. Williams
NYT: ‘Maybe We Did Screw Up a Little’ NYT: ‘Maybe We Did Screw Up a Little’
On May 26 the New York Times finally hitched up its pants, took a deep breath and issued an editorial declaration of moderate regret for its role in boosting the case for war on ...
May 27, 2004 / Column / Alexander Cockburn