The Best of The Nation: Selections from the Independent Magazine of Politics and Culture Book

For 135 years The Nation magazine has embodied the critical spirit of dissenting journalism, giving voice to the passionate witnesses whose engagement with today's controversies has startled, provoked, and entertained. As E. L. Doctorow wrote of The Nation, "The editors never published anything less than what was urgently on their minds." Here is Patricia Williams on the Million Man March; Tony Kushner on gay liberation; William Styron on Prozac and Halcion; Susan Sontag on Bosnia; Jonathan Schell on the case for abolishing nuclear weapons; and Erica Jong's response to the Modern Library's list of the past century's 100 greatest books -- a list of her own. Finally, Michael Moore asks, "Is the Left Nuts? Or Is It Me?"

Library Journal

For over 135 years, the Nation has provided thoughtful, lively political and social discussion from a leftist perspective. A 1990 anthology (The Nation, 1865-1990: Selections from the Independent Magazine of Politics and Culture) presented an excellent selection of articles from 1865 through 1990. This new volume covers the last decade of the 20th century. Over 90 authors, such as E.L. Doctorow, Christopher Hitchens, Arthur Miller, Salman Rushdie, Cornel West, Susan Sontag, Michael Moore, and Gore Vidal, cover the Gulf War, the end of communism and the Cold War, Bosnia, the Clinton administration, gender and sexual politics, and a range of other issues. As editors Navasky and Vanden Heuvel point out in their opening note, the volume presents an alternative history to the 1990s, one undisclosed by the bulk of modern mass media. This excellent work is recommended for all libraries.--Stephen L. Hupp, Urbana Univ., OH Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.