Search

This article focuses on the book "Wild Man: The Life and Times of Daniel Ellsberg," by Tom Wells. The Wild Man of the title is a disorganized and undisciplined "egomaniac" and "narcissist" with a voracious sexual appetite, overweening ambition and an overpowering craving for adulation and public attention. He is incapable of completing work or maintaining personal loyalties. He even unearths evidence that he didn't bring any means of paying when he invited one couple out to dinner and that another couple living below his apartment called him a noisy neighbor.

The article presents information on several books. The book "Capt. Francis Champernowne, the Du'ch Conquest of Acadie, and Other Historical Papers," by Charles Wesley Tuttle, is the tribute of affectionate friends to one of the most diligent and careful of our antiquarian writers. Charles W. Tuttle, of noted New Hampshire origin, was a student all his life, and fortunately his tastes led him to give much time and care to investigating the more obscure portions of our local history. Another book discussed is "Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society," vol. 4. The Massachusetts Historical Society, in 1877 and 1878, published two volumes of "Belknap Papers" from manuscripts found in its cabinets, consisting mainly of letters between Jeremy Belknap, the author of a history of New Hampshire and Ebenezer Hazard of Philadelphia, Post-master-General under the old Confederation, and editor of the historical collections known by his name. Though these letters grew out of the historical and literary projects of the writers, they throw much light upon a great variety of subjects between 1779 and 1798.

The author asks that how does a self-described free speecher help the cause by bringing libel charges against the one American newspaper that considers the First Amendment a personal bequest from the Framers? Respect for the facts of the writer Dan Moldea's case confronts any free-expression realist with uncomfortable answers. The unholy mess of Moldea v. The New York Times, in which Moldea fights for the right to answer an attack on his book and the Times hides behind the First Amendment while suppressing his voice, developed because of a fundamental division at the heart of The New York Times. The free-expression thinking should be forced to accommodate that fact. Unlike The Washington Post Book World, for instance, the Times Book Review does not list the names of its editors on a masthead.

This article critically appraises the book "The Biglow Papers," by James Russell Lowell. It is in his character of a satirical and humorous poet that one now has to do with him, for a second series of the fatuous "Biglow Papers" is just put forth. Certainly no one will gainsay us when we say that in this particular walk no one can be for a moment compared to Lowell. Everybody knows that the poems were a complete success from. the ginning, and at once gave the author the highest place among living critical and humorous writers.

The article presents information on publishers. Just what contents one can expect from the reprint houses depends on the output of trade publishers and the economics of paper-book distribution. If it were simply a matter of reproducing those titles which have sold best in hard-cover editions, then best-sellers and book club selections would automatically be transformed into paper books. But experience has taught reprint publishers that such works, artificially inflated and jammed down the throats of book buyers, are often dismal failures when exposed on their merits to the mass market, without promotion.

The article discusses books like "Revolution of Conscience: Martin Luther King Jr., and the Philosophy of Nonviolence," by Greg Moses and "The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr.," vol. 3, "Birth of a New Age, December 1955--December 1956," edited by Clayborne Carson. The guttings of King's philosophical and spiritual essence mean walking away from the man who said, "our government must depend more on its moral power than on its military power. One explanation for the nation's refusal to honor King the pacifist is that pacifism itself is not understood. It is rarely taught as a viable alternative to violence.

The article presents a list of books published in 1967 by writers who contributed to the journal "The Nation" during the past year. This compilation, a regular year-end feature, includes books published in England. Some of them are "Capitulation," by Carl Amery, "The Theatre of Commitment," by Eric Bentley, "A Fortunate Man," by John Berger, "Disarmament Inspection Under Soviet Law," by Harold J. Berman and "A Place on Earth," by Wendell Berry, "Reap the Whirlwind," by Geoffrey Bing and "Making the Rounds," by Lennart Bruce.

The article presents a list of books published in 1968 by writers who contributed to "The Nation" during the past year. Some of the books are "The Venice Biennale 1895-1968," by Lawrence Alloway, "Milton and the Italian Cities," by John Arthos, "Openings," by Wendell Berry, "Conquest of Violence: The Gandhian Philosophy of Conflict," by Joan V. Bondurant, "The Face of Violence," by J. Bronowski, "Dead End School," by Robert Coles, "The Day of the Parrot," by Stanley Cooperman, "A Different Kind of Country," by Raymond F. Dasmann.

The article presents information about the book "Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society," vol. 8. The letters of Governor of Connecticut John Winthrop take up nearly a third of the book. As many as twenty-two letters had already been printed in the "Life and Letters of John Winthrop," and a considerable number of others are to be found in previous volumes of the Collections and Proceedings of the Historical Society. Winthrop was the friend and correspondent of many learned men, and his letters dealing with various subjects including philosophy, chemistry, agriculture, astronomy, polities and literature are proofs that he was one of the most accomplished scholars of the age.

The article focuses on the book "The Day the Presses Stopped: A History of the Pentagon Papers Case," by David Rudenstine. This book is a carefully wrought, thoroughly researched, literate and exciting book about a case that raised the question of what power, if any, the government has, or should have, to prevent the nation's press from spreading truthful information and editorial perspectives that embarrass that government, undermine its reputation and might conceivably lead to the destruction of property, the dislocation of foreign affairs and even a loss of human life.

Presents letters to the editor. Response to a book review by Bruce Franklin; Critical appreciation of Tom Wells's biography of Daniel Ellsberg; Reference to errors in the book "Home to War: A History of the Vietnam Veterans' Movement."

The article presents interview with Philip Roth, the author of the book "Zuckerman Bound: A Trilogy and Epilogue." According to Roth, if his books are so persuasive that they are utterly convinced that he give them life red hot, untransformed, as it's lived, well, he suppose that's not the worst cross any novelist has had to bear. Better than their not believing him at all. The fashion now is to praise books one doesn't believe in. When asked if he gets annoyed when critics read this book as straight confession he says that it is very easy to read it this way. This is the easiest possible way to read. It makes it just like reading the evening paper. He only gets annoyed because it isn't the evening paper that he has written.

The article presents a list of books for the Christmas season. Books are less an incitation to the wrath of the gods. The list, serves as a check list and varied enough to satisfy most interests. Some of the books are "Human Nature and the Human Condition," by Joseph Wood Krutch, The Magic Christian," by Terry Southern, "On the Sociology of Medicine. On the History of Medicine," by Henry E. Sigorist, "The Dymaxion World of Buckminster Fuller," by Robert W. Marks, "The Edge of Objectivity," by Charles Coulston.

The article presents a list of forthcoming books and publications. The Caxton Club of Chicago has nearly ready "Journal of La Salle's Last Voyage," a page-for-page and line-for-line reprint of the first English translation, with a facsimile of the folding-map of the first French edition, and numerous notes by writer Melville B. Anderson. Two hundred and three copies will be printed from type on American hand-made paper and three on Japanese vellum; The Southern History Association will begin with the new year to issue its publications in the form of a quarterly, subscription to which is included in the annual membership fee of three dollars.

This article critically appraises new editions of U.S. poet and critic Edgar Allan Poe, "The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe," edited by James A. Harrison and "The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe," with a critical introduction by Charles F. Richardson. The coincidence of their publication strongly emphasizes the established place of Poe in American standard literature, and the care with which his fame is cherished. In other respects, the two editions are also opposed, and, if the former receives greater attention, it is because of its unusual claims.

The article presents information on books and their publishers. Messrs D. Appleton & Co. announces that in case a sufficient number of copies is subscribed for, they will publish large-paper editions, consisting of one hundred copies each, of the "Life and Letters of Fitz-Greene Halleck," and "The Poetical Writings of Fitz-Greene Halleck." The volumes will be printed on tinted paper, with pictures not found in other editions. Some good judges might be inclined to give to Gerald Griffin the highest place as a delineator of Irish life and Irish character, but judges who could be called really good would all, pronounce in favor of awarding the second place to William Carleton, whose death at the age of seventy is just reported.

The article discusses several books and publishers. The book "Italian Sculpture of the Renaissance," by Lucy J. Freeman, will be published immediately by Macmillan Co. Shortly to be expected from Henry Holt & Co is the book "The Life and Works of Schiller," a volume of nearly 500 pages, by professor Calvin Thomas. The book "The Spinster Book," by Myrtle Reed, is a series of short essays on such subjects as "The Natural History of Proposals" and "The Consolations of Spinsterhood." Writer G.W. Botsford's book "History of the Orient and Greece," is an elementary handbook intended for the use of schools and academies, and furnished with sample examination papers in the old-fashioned manner.

This article presents developments in the field of literature and its publishing, as of May 18, 1899. The book "A Princess of Vascovy," by John Oxenham, will be published by G.W. Dillingham Co. J.C.L. Clark's book "Two Summer Island Papers," in preparation by C. de Hasbrouck, Boston, will contain sixteen pictures from photographs and old prints and an historical map. Lee & Shepard Co., Boston, announce the books for the early fall "For Love's Sweet Sake: Selected Poems of Love in All Moods," edited by G. Hembert Westley, and "Camping on the St. Lawrence; or, On the Trail of the Early Discoverers," a boy's book, by Everett T. Tomlinson.

This article presents information regarding several books which have been published recently. Among the books which the Century Co. is publishing this week are "Social Evolution," by Prof. F. Stuart Chapin, "The Near East," being the third volume of travel in the East on which Robert Hichens and Jules Guerin have collaborated, and Arthur Rackham's "Mother Goose," which contains twelve pictures in color by this artist and more than sixty in black and white. For the Anniversary Papers by colleagues and pupils of Prof. George Lyman Kittredge, the library of Harvard University has prepared printed catalogue cards covering each of the forty-six contributions.

The article presents information about various books along with their publication. Macmillan & Co. are about to publish "Natural Theology," by G.G. Stokes; "The Burning of Rome," an historical novel by Alfred J. Church and "The History of David Grieve," a new novel by Humphry Ward. A "Latin Prose" by A. Judson Eaton of McGill University, Montreal, should deserve a welcome on the part of teachers and students of Latin. "Nature Study for the Common Schools" is the title of a small volume by Wilbur S. Jackman. It consists chiefly of a series of questions, which cover a wide range over the sciences, but are all of an elementary nature, requiring only ordinary observation or simple experiment for their answer.

The article presents information on several books and periodicals. A new volume of critical essays by Arthur Symons, entitled "The Romantic Movement in English Poetry," will be published by E. P. Dutton & Co. in 1909. The January 1910 issue of the American Journal of International Law opens with a 45-page paper by professor Paul S. Reinsch, from University of Wisconsin, on international administrative law and national sovereignty. The chief aim of G.D. Oswell in his new book entitled "Sketches of Rulers of India," is to demonstrate the principles on which the English administer India.

This article focuses on the book "Toward the Seizure of Power," by V.I. Lenin. The papers here collected were written by Lenin in the twelve weeks that passed between the rise of Kerensky in July 1917, and the Bolshevik revolution in November. Not all of Lenin's papers covering that period are here, for many political letters and newspaper notes are still to be discovered. "Toward the Seizure of Power," though it was not intended as such, is actually a revolutionist's handbook.

"Savage" and "brutal" are false terms, the brute is so often the man. In the September 1927 issue of the "Forum," in an article entitled "Can Man Keep Savage Virtues," Herbert J. Spinden says, "Brutality is hardly a proper character of savages or even of brutes. Real people of the wilds are timid and retiring creatures, for all their sturdiness of bone and muscle"; and in the same article he speaks of a museum exploration trip in Honduras, made with the help of Paya Indians. In England paper, metals, rags, and bones are salvaged. One pays a fine for throwing away a used bus ticket that could have been conserved as waste paper, and the grocer is not expected to furnish a bag with what he sells but to put it into the basket or shopping bag brought by the purchaser.

The article provides information on two books on poet and writer Emily Dickinson. The book "Emily Dickinson. An Interpretive Biography," is written by Thomas H. Johnson, and the book "The Poems of Emily Dickinson," edited by Thomas H. Johnson. Dickinson died in 1886,at the age of fifty-six, leaving six published poems her "papers," and many letters scattered among her various correspondents. Dickinson's papers were mainly in the form of "packets," impromptu booklets made by folding sheets of writing paper and stitching them together at the fold. Dickinson had passed through a creative burst unparalleled in the history of lyric poetry. For what Johnson centrally attests is what every well-engaged reader knows--that the biography of a poet is his poems, once people have learned to read them.

This article critically appraises the book "Domesday Studies: Being the Papers Read at the Meetings of the Domesday Commemoration, 1886," edited by P. Edward Dove. The commemoration took place two years ago, but it is not surprising that so long a time has elapsed before the publication of proceedings so extensive, varied, and abounding in puzzling detail. The extreme importance of this unique document was only slowly realized, and for many centuries it was, to all intents and purposes, unknown. The papers contained in the present volume are for the most part directed to the examination of certain fundamental technical expressions, upon the proper understanding of which must depend any fruitful study of the subject.

This article presents information on the book "Joseph McCarthy: Reexamining the Life and Legacy of America's Most Hated Senator," by Arthur Herman. The cold war has been over for a decade but it lingers on the American home front. The Soviet Union and its KGB are extinct but they survive in a proxy paper war, a subspecies of our current political divisions. Arthur Herman, in this new biography of U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy, agrees that the Soviets deeply penetrated the American government, and he endorses McCarthy's sensational charge that Owen Lattimore was the "Number One Soviet Spy." Herman's attempts to explain McCarthy border on the comic. First, he looks to his Irish background. Herman then moves to higher ground, suggesting that McCarthy may have been manic-depressive--but he has no clinical evidence whatsoever.

This article presents information on two books. These are "Santa Evita," by Tomas Eloy Martinez, translated by Helen Lane and "In My Own Words: Evita," translated by Laura Dail. Illegitimate, ill-educated and poor, Eva María Ibarguren Duarte came from a provincial town to Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1935, her ambition to succeed in the theater far exceeding, by all accounts, her talent as an actress. She built herself a reputation in the' world of radio drama, tells the bizarre story of the corpse's travels after its disappearance and of those who accompanied it along the way. Martinez currently teaches in the United States, but for years has maintained a high profile as a journalist for Argentine papers. The book "In My Own Words," is a translation by Laura Dail of "Mi men-saje," a manuscript purportedly dictated by Evita in the last months of her life. Mi men-saje was published in Argentina in 1987, after being "discovered" in the garage of a former government notary.

As editor and publisher of the world's most famous newsletter, I.F. Stone's "Weekly," as a reporter and columnist for PM and its successor papers, as Washington editor of "The Nation," as a frequent contributor to "The New York Review of Books," Izzy was a quadruple threat. He combined the meat and potatoes moxie of a police reporter, the instinct for precision of a scholar, the question phrasing skill of a Socrates never better manifested than in his 1988 best seller, "The Trial of Socrates," and the political philosophy of an anarchist if he was to be believed when he wrote that "every government is run by liars and nothing they say should be believed." Actually, he confided to an international gathering of investigative journalists in Amsterdam a couple of years ago.

Barriers between reading for adults and for children seem to be breaking down, so that young people may often have the experience of lending books to their elders, who may in turn find with startled interest that a book which they have regarded as fairly complex has been read with understanding by children. In spite of their amazing schedules, their French, their dancing-tap, ballet, classic, expressionistic-their school papers, athletics, clubs, dramatics, their home work and social service, their production of novels, plays, or autobiographies, or their many other sometimes rather militant forms of self-expression, they seem to have a fair amount of time in which to discover some of the things they want to know. They read with greedy enjoyment. They like things because they like them.

This article focuses on various articles, published in several magazines in the February month of 1869. "Hours at Home" opens with an article by Professor Noah Porter, who is to write a series of which this paper is the second, on " Books and Reading." They will, no doubt, contain some sound general remarks on reading, the goodness of good reading and the badness of bad; but Professor Porter, like many other men of ability, does not seem a good. The Galaxy has no very noticeable paper this month. Theatre-goers will be glad to read Mr. C.W. Elliott's account of Miss Charlotte Cushman's early history, which was full of brave struggles, it seems.

This article presents descriptive notes on various books to be published by different companies. S.C. Griggs & Co., Chicago, issue next month "The Union Pacific Railway: A Study in Railway-Politics, History, and Economics," by John P. Davis. Under the title of "A travers le Japon" the office of the French Minister of Agriculture has printed, on Japanese paper, five hundred copies of an octavo of 172 pages relating to the forests and forest-productions of Japan. It is interesting to know that a large portion of that Eastern empire is under the management of a well-organized forest administration, and that in the. year 1882 a college of agriculture and forestry was established near Tokyo, where there are now three hundred students, nearly half of whom are in training for office in the forestry departments.

This article focuses on the book "Democracy and Finance," by William O. Douglas. This book is a collection of papers written by Douglas before he graduated from the United States Securities and Exchange Commission to the Supreme Court. They tell a great deal about him. Douglas did not make his way by going into a silk-stocking district, or to a lawyers dinner, and attacking gangsters--whom everybody is against. Douglas points out, fully two-thirds of the country's dividend and interest payments each year are handed to individuals or families living on incomes of $10,000 or less.

The article presents information about papers published in periodicals during October 1869. Four chapters of the article "Susan Fielding" open the Galaxy, though it is to the article "Put Yourself in his Place" that all novel-readers, habitual or occasional, will first turn. Two of the Galaxy's articles that are of more consequence than those of which mention has been made are Grant White's "Shakespearian Mares' Nests" and "Journey in Northern China." White gives provides a good verbal criticism, and throws light on a good many passages which many of the readers had not been understanding before. But he is not entirely free from those sudden and unaccountable fits of stone-blindness which afflict commentators.

This article critically appraises several books. Some of them are, "The Varieties of History," edited by Fritz Stern, "The Destiny of the Mind East and West," by William S. Hass, "In the American Grain," by Carlos and others. Western historiography had not advanced far before it became evident that, the expectation that history would teach mean "the process of his formation" was less a demonstrable fact than an act of faith. "The Varieties of History," a collection of essays and papers by thirty-five historians, from Voltaire onwards, "a book by historians about history," shows the Western historical worm writhing and twisting in its desperate search through blind, earthy fact for ultimate meaning.

The article presents a general criticism of books and poems. Sometimes it is hard to criticize, one wants only to chronicle. The good or mediocre books come in from week to week and the author puts them aside and read them and think of what to say; but the "worthless" books come in day after day, like cries and truck sounds from the street and there is nothing that anyone could think of that is good enough for them. In the bad type of the thin pamphlets, in hand-set lines on imported paper, peoples' hard lives and hopeless ambitions have expressed themselves more directly and hearbbreakingly than they have ever been expressed in any work of art.

The forthcoming publication of "His Own Country," by Paul Kester, is announced by the Bobbs-Merrill Co. J.B. Lippincott Co. announces the publication of Pierre Loti's "War," translated by Marjorie Laurie, "The Rural School From Within," by M.G. Kirkpatrick, "The Soldiers' English and French Conversation Book," by W.M. Gallichan, and "Church Advertising," arranged by W.B. Ashley. "The Reserve Officers' Handbook," by Capt. S.J. Sutherland, and "Papers from Picardy," by T.W. Pym and Geoffrey Gordon, are announced as forthcoming by Houghton Mifflin Company.

The article presents information on the forthcoming publications. "Hatchways," by writer Ethel Sidgwick, will be released on November 11, 1916. The following volumes will be released shortly "Poetry: The Renascence of Wonder," by writer Theodore Watts Dunton; "The Blue-China Book," by author Ada Walker Camehi; "Belle Jones," by author Allan Meacham, and "The Moose Book," by Samuel Merrill. Also, G.P. Putnam's Sons announce for publication immediately or in the near future, "Letters of Henry Brevoort to Washington Irving, together with Other Brevoort Papers Heretofore Unpublished," edited with introduction by author George S Uellman

The article discusses books and authors. In "The American Philosophy of Government," which was the first, writer Alpheus H. Snow collected a substantial volume, some nineteen papers and addresses on political and legal subjects which he had contributed during the past ten years to various periodicals, or to the proceedings of learned societies. Of the legal or constitutional papers those which deal with the development of the American doctrine of the jurisdiction of courts over States, the execution of judgments against States, and the position of the judiciary in the American system of government are the most notable.

The article discusses the book "Papers From the Tortugas Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution of Washington." The present volume of highly specialized studies may be taken to represent one of the periodic fruits of research In a single field, that of marine biology, or as the index of the work of a great instrument designed for the advancement and diffusion of knowledge among men.

This article literally appraises the book "Chemistry in America: Chapters From the History of the Science in the United States," by Edgar F. Smith. Dr. Smith has brought together in this volume, the notes he has collected on the earlier American chemists, with many of their papers and addresses. He has not attempted to write a history of the development of chemistry in this country, but offers these "Chapters" so that "chemists of today may have, in easily accessible form, copies, at least, of some of the real treasures of science, and with the hope that through them they may be stimulated to search for other, still hidden, documents of equal or of greater value.

This article presents information about various books. Some of the them are, "Sundancing," by John Anderson, "Cinema of Ousiders," by Emanuel Levy, "Celluloid Mavericks," by Greg Merritt, and others. At the very least, one can suggest what American independent cinema is not," writes Emanuel Levy in his thoughtful and substantial book on the current scene, Cinema of Outsiders. "It's not avant-garde, it's not experimental, and it's not underground. With few exceptions, there is not much edge, formal experimentation, or serious challenge to dominant culture.

The article focuses on the book "Hammer," by Armand Hammer and Neil Lyndon. Hammer has been writing and rewriting his life for at least a half-century; this is his second autobiography and the fourth official account of his life. A more telling alteration of the historical record concerns Hammer's first and only meeting with Lenin, in October 1921. Hammer has always suggested, whether indirectly or by omission, that he met Lenin alone, but Lenin's papers show that he was accompanied by Boris Reinstein, an influential Russian friend of his father's who knew Vladimir Ilych Lenin, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, and who was, in 1921, a Comintern official in charge of relations with the United States.

This article presents information about various books. Some of the books are, "Imaging Atlantis," by Richard Ellis, "Unearthing Atlantis," by Charles Pellegrino, and "Mating," by Norman Rush. Richard Ellis, a marine artist and fluent scribbler of books on legends of the sea, prefers to believe that blue monkeys were around in the Aegean as late as 430 BC and to blame for the Plague of Athens, which knocked off Pericles, since their close relative, the vervet, or green monkey, is responsible for the spread of the Ebola virus in Zaire and the Sudan.

This article appraises the books "Growing Darkness, Growing Light," by Jean Valentine; "Loose Sugar," by Brenda Hillman and "The End of Desire," by Jill Bialosky. Jill Bialosky, Brenda Hillman and Jean Valentine fall into this category of underlit but deserving of considerable and considered attention. Each represents a very different aesthetic--Valentine, a writer of deep-image, projective verse; Hillman, a once pure-lyric poet, now a follower of gnosticism and a passionate experimenter in form; Bialosky, an unabashedly autobiographical first book poet.

The article discusses books like "Walter Benjamin: A Biography," by Momme Brodersen and "Benjamin's Crossing," by Jay Parini. Benjamin is said to have been a shy and awkward man, yet there was something about him that made people want to take his picture. One of the nicest things about Momme Brodersen's lavishly illustrated biography is that, more than half a century after Benjamin's death, American readers can finally get a good look at his face.

This article focuses on the book "The Cultural Front: The Laboring of American Culture in the Twentieth Century," by Michael Denning, a professor of American studies at Yale. In this book, Denning offers an exhaustive survey of the Popular Front's "movement culture." Denning appears to have read, heard and seen it all. He examines fiction and criticism; theater and film; jazz, cabaret, folk and classical music. He also shows a rare appreciation of the fact that intellectuals and artists were only part of the story; no less important to it were grass-roots institutions like unions, summer camps, youth groups, foreign language associations and regional magazines.

This article presents information on two books, namely "Not Out of Africa: How Afrocentrism Became an Excuse to Teach Myth As History," by Mary Lefkowitz, and "Black Athena Revisited," edited by Mary Lefkowitz and Guy MacLean Rogers. There are undoubtedly a number of perceptive criticisms and legitimate challenges to the work in "Not Out of Africa," and "Black Athena Revisited." Yet in making their case against "Black Athena Revisited," the first volume of which was published in 1987, Lefkowitz, Rogers and others have nearly exorcised the spirit of scholarly endeavor. Scholarliness further demands that people accurately represent the claims of those with whom the people disagree. According to most accounts, "Black Athena Revisited," charges that the Ancient Model was overthrown because nineteenth-and twentieth-century scholars of the ancient world were "racists and anti-Semites."In Not Out of Africa," Lefkowitz counters that these Greek reports about Egypt are grossly inaccurate: Greek writers were misled by imaginative Egyptian priests and they often misunderstood what their informants told them.

This article appraises the book "Contingency, Irony and Solidarity," by Richard Rorty. Richard Rorty writes in Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity, the idea that truth was made rather than found began to take hold of the imagination of Europe. This idea--that where there are no sentences there is no truth, that sentences are elements of human languages, and that human languages are human creations, as Rorty puts it implies that individual and social moralities are human creations, not derived from human essence or the nature of things. Rorty says that there is no human essence, no nature of things.

The Drifter has nothing to add to the furious controversy, which he so innocently started by listing the books he had not read. But another thought occurred to him when he put down the paper this morning after reading it. The Drifter does not pretend to know exactly what this means about his intellectual capacities, but he is vain enough or modest enough, to believe that it is not untypical. It is evident that he, as a newspaper reader, is concerned with what is ordinarily called human interest; that he is still enough of a liberal and a reformer to burn at certain kinds of injustice; that he keeps roughly au courant with what is happening in Washington but is more careful about the latest books, plays, and comments from the columnists.