Books and Ideas

Rethinking the Second Wave Rethinking the Second Wave

A few years ago, an intellectual historian uncovered the story of Betty Friedan's formative years as a Popular Front journalist and activist in the 1940s.

Sep 25, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Nancy MacLean

Buffoonery of the Mundane Buffoonery of the Mundane

"Felisberto Hernández is a writer like no other," Italo Calvino announced once, "like no European, nor any Latin American.

Sep 19, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Ilan Stavans

Web Journalism’s Sticky Pages Web Journalism’s Sticky Pages

Legendary New York Times obit writer Alden Whitman once observed, "Death, the cliché assures us, is the great leveler; but it obviously levels some a great deal more tha...

Sep 19, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Tatiana Siegel

Keeping the Faith Keeping the Faith

That the abused child will defend its parent is no arcane phenomenon of child psychology--hell, we've seen it on Law and Order.

Sep 19, 2002 / Books & the Arts / John Anderson

Not So Pretty Horses, Too Not So Pretty Horses, Too

William Eastlake once gave William Kittredge a piece of advice about writing as a Westerner. Never allow a publisher to put a picture of a horse on the cover of your novel: "Th...

Sep 12, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Philip Connors

On Culturing a Union On Culturing a Union

American labor still pays lip service to the idea that it seeks "bread and roses too"--a higher standard of living, plus the chance for workers to enjoy some of the finer thing...

Sep 12, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Steve Early

The Fourth Estate’s Estate The Fourth Estate’s Estate

Soon after the surrender of Nazi Germany, the reporter Martha Gellhorn made her way to Dachau. There she interviewed a recently liberated doctor who told her how the Germans im...

Sep 12, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Robert W. Snyder

Letter to America Letter to America

My hope: empathy, compassion, the capacity to imagine that you are not unique

Sep 12, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Ariel Dorfman

Changing History Changing History

Editor's Note: One year after the attacks, Eric Foner assessed the impact of 9/11 on the way America tells the story of itself and readjusts its relationship with the world. ...

Sep 5, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Eric Foner

Alabanza: In Praise of Local 100 Alabanza: In Praise of Local 100

For the 43 members of Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Local 100, working at the Windows on the World restaurant, who lost their lives in the attack on the World Trade Ce...

Sep 5, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Martín Espada

x