Autumn 2008

Articles

The Censor in the Mirror

It’s not only what the Chinese Propaganda Department does to artists, but what it makes artists do to their own work

by Ha Jin

The Torture Colony

In a remote part of Chile, an evil German evangelist built a utopia whose members helped the Pinochet regime perform its foulest deeds

by Bruce Falconer

Where Does American History Begin?

Mixing geography with invention, the first explorers and mapmakers made the New World a very hard place to pin down

by Ted Widmer

Something Called Terrorism

In a speech given at Harvard 22 years ago and never before published, Leonard Bernstein offered a warning that remains timely

by Leonard Bernstein

The New Old Way of Learning Languages

Now all but vanished, a once-popular system of reading Greek and Latin classics could revitalize modern teaching methods

by Ernest Blum

Departments

Poetry

Apollo and Dionysus

Langdon Hammer

Four Poems

Henri Cole

Bronze Bells of Autumn

Linda Pastan

Point of Departure

America's Dark Page

Marcus Rediker

Fiction

Making Good

Lore Segal

Modern Lovers

Rick Moody

Commonplace Book

Secrets

Anne Matthews

Book Essay

The Swiveling Light of Truth

Remembering Grace Paley and her wise, fierce, funny, sad, innovative short stories

Roberta Silman

Book Reviews

Immortality Gained

John Milton was not only a great poet, but also a great defender of liberty

Jay Parini

Copyright Wrongs

When technology makes an illegal act easy, should the law make that act legal?

Paul K. Saint-Amour

How Special a Relationship?

Whether T.R. needed Edward VII to establish the United States as a world power

Joshua Hawley

Potted History

Learning more about slave life in South Carolina from a legendary potter-poet

Scott Reynolds Nelson

Shaking Habit's House

Critic James Wood preaches a return to the realism of Flaubert

Sarah L. Courteau

The Preparation of a Lifetime

Sanford J. Ungar