Granted, Adams’s persona was firmly wrapped in the mantle of failure—so much so that savvy readers soon suspected that he was protesting just a bit too much about his ignorance and ineptitude. Still, when he writes that “Nothing in...
If you might wonder why some persons try to move heaven and dirt to despoil the nomination to the U. S. Supreme Court of a legal scholar (as distinguished from a former law student who would have gained either legal or judicial experience...
Pragmatism was once called America’s philosophy. The pragmatic cast of mind was practical, even-tempered, experimental, effective. These qualities were ascribed to Americans generally, and the reading public that accepted the description...
Why the Southern Renaissance ever occurred is still something of a mystery. All that is attempted here is an analysis of some explanations that have been offered by others and a few additional speculations. Before turning to the critical wh...
I first came to know Effie Ruskin some decades before the play brought her to public attention and made her a heroine of sorts. In the mid-1960’s my husband and I, and our children, spent the summer at Venice’s Lido, the locale of his youth...
The first reaction of the educated public to a new volume of political memoirs is one of wariness. Will this be another pièce justicatif — or an example of Establishment iconography aimed at glorifying distinguished pomposity—or both...
This is an age obsessed by the need for moral guidance. After God died and our faith in universal reason collapsed, we look everywhere for advice on how to find the good life. Even The New York Times Sunday Magazine has become a source of...
His first name, Wilbury, had a slightly frivolous sound, like that of a furry character from Beatrix Potter or A.A. Milne, but no student would have thought of using it, even behind his back, for Mr. Crockett was the antithesis of frivolity...
The era of the Civil War and Reconstruction remains the crucible of American history, the trial that decisively defined this country and its self-perceived mission. The American people seem to recognize that fact, for no era in our history...
Louis Rubin should have been with us. One year short of Street’s magic dozen, 1946—57, he abandoned journalism to earn distinction at Hollins College and then the University of North Carolina as a teacher, critic, author, publisher, and...