Read American Experiment Online
Authors: James MacGregor Burns
[
Television watching
]: Morris Janowitz,
The Last Half-Century: Societal Change and Politics in America
(University of Chicago Press, 1978), pp. 337-38, quoted at p. 337;
Statistical Abstract,
p. 531 (Table 907); see also Benjamin Stein, “This Is Not Your Life: Television as the Third Parent,”
Public Opinion,
vol. 9, no. 4 (November-December 1986), pp. 4 1-42; Joshua Meyrowitz, “The 19-Inch Neighborhood,”
Newsweek,
vol. 106, no. 4 (July 22, 1985), p. 8.
[
TV in the workplace
]:
Newsweek,
vol. 111, no. 1 (January 4, 1988), pp. 34-35.
613
[
Politicians and the electronic media
]: Edwin Diamond and Stephen Bates,
The Spot: The Rise of Political Advertising on Television
(MIT Press, 1984); Kathleen Hall Jamieson,
Packaging the Presidency
(Oxford University Press, 1984); Austin Ranney,
Channels of Power: The Impact of Television on American Politics
(Basic Books, 1983); Ronald Berkman and Laura W. Kilch,
Politics in the Media Age
(McGraw-Hill, 1986); Timothy E. Cook, “Marketing the Members: Evolving Media Strategies in the House of Representatives,” unpublished typescript, presented at the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, April 18-20, 1985; Neil Postman,
Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business
(Viking, 1985), ch. 9; Broder,
passim;
Keith Blume,
The Presidential Election Show
(Bergin & Garvey, 1985); Anne Haskell, “Congress Exploits the New Media,”
Proceedings
(Institute of Politics, John F. Kennedy School of Government, 1981-82), pp. 56-59.
613
[“
It is irresponsible
”]: quoted in Haskell, p. 58.
[“
I saw President Ford bump his head
”]: quoted in Parenti, p. 15.
[
TV and opinion formation
]: Janowitz, ch. 9
passim;
Ronald E. Frank and Marshall G. Greenbury,
The Public
’
s Use of Television
(Sage Publications, 1980); Joshua Meyrowitz,
Na Sense of Place: The Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behavior
(Oxford University Press, 1985); Paul F. Lazarsfeld, Bernard Berelson, and Hazel Gaudet,
The People
’
s Choice,
2nd ed. (Columbia University Press, 1948), ch. 16 and
passim;
Elihu Katz and Paul F. Lazarsfeld,
Personal Influence: The Part Played by People in the Flow of Mass Communications
(Free Press, 1955).
[
TV and political cynicism
]: Michael J. Robinson, “Public Affairs Television and the Growth of Political Malaise: The Case of ‘The Selling of the Pentagon,’ ”
American Political Science. Review,
vol. 70, no. 2 (June 1976), pp. 409-32; Burns, Peltason, and Cronin, p. 247 (table).
614
[
Political bias in the media
]: Burns, Peltason, and Cronin, pp. 253-55 and sources cited therein; Michael J. Robinson, “Just How Liberal Is the News? 1980 Revisited,”
Public Opinion,
vol. 6, no. 1 (February-March 1983), pp. 55-60; Nick Thimmesch, ed.,
A Liberal Media Elite
? (American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1985); Sally Bedell Smith, “Conservatism Finds Its TV Voice,”
New York Times,
May 19, 1985, sect. 2, p. 32; Parenti, ch. 6 and
passim;
Broder, ch. 9; Ranney, ch. 2; Peter Stoler,
The War Against the Press: Politics, Pressure and Intimidation in the 80s
(Dodd, Mead, 1986), chs. 8, 12 and
passim.
[
Decline of mass-circulation magazines
]: Loudon Wainwright,
The Great American Magazine: An Inside History of
Life (Knopf, 1986), esp. chs. 15, 20; James K. Classman, “One Life to Live” (review of Wainwright),
New Republic,
vol. 196, no. 6 (February 9, 1987), pp. 36-40; Otto Friedrich,
Decline and Fall
(Harper, 1970), ch. 23.
[
Specialized and alternative periodicals
]: Abe Peck,
Uncovering the Sixties: The Life and Times
o
f the Underground Press
(Pantheon, 1985); Robert K. Glessing,
The Underground Press in America
(Indiana University Press, 1970); David Owen, “The Fifth Estate,”
Atlantic,
vol. 256, no. 1 (July 1985), pp. 80-85; see also Theodore Peterson,
Magazines in the Twentieth Century
(University of Illinois Press, 1964), ch. 13.
[
Decline of independent local newspapers
]: see Philip Weiss, “Invasion of the Gannettoids,”
New Republic,
vol. 196, no. 5 (February 2, 1987), pp. 18-22.
The New Yorkers
615
[
State of black literature
]: see Nathan A. Scott, Jr., “Black Literature,” in Daniel Hoff man, ed.,
Harvard Guide to Contemporary American Writing
(Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1979), ch. 7; C. W. E. Bigsby,
The Second Black Renaissance: Essays in Black Literature
(Greenwood Press, 1980); Herbert Hill, ed.,
Anger, and Beyond: The Negro Writer in the United States
(Harper, 1966); Mari Evans, ed.,
Black Women Writers (1950-1980): A Critical Evaluation
(Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1984).
[
State of southern literature
]: see Lewis P. Simpson, “Southern Fiction,” in Hoffman, ch. 4; Louis D. Rubin, Jr., et al., eds.,
The History of Southern Literature
(Louisiana State University Press, 1985), parts 3-4; Rubin and Robert D. Jacobs, eds.,
Southern Renascence: The Literature of the Modern South
(Johns Hopkins Press, 1953); Richard Gray,
The Literature of Memory: Modern Writers of the American South
(Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977).
[“
Terrible loss of moral energy
”]: Doctorow, “It’s a Cold War Out There, Class of ’83,”
Nation,
vol. 237, no. 1 (July 2, 1983), pp. 6-7, quoted at pp. 6, 7; see also Doctorow, “Living in the House of Fiction,”
ibid.,
vol. 226, no. 15 (April 22, 1978), pp. 459-60, 462.
615
[
Bellow on
“
publicity intellectuals
”]: Mark Christhilf, “Saul Bellow and the American Intellectual Community,”
Modern Age,
vol. 28, no. 1 (Winter 1984), pp. 55-67, esp. pp. 59-61. 615-16 [“
Million-dollar advances
”]: Kazin, “American Writing Now,”
New Republic,
vol. 183, no. 16 (October 18, 1980), pp. 27-30, quoted at p. 28.
616
[
Kostelanetz on the literary marketplace
]: Kostelanetz,
The End of Intelligent Writing: Literary Politics in America
(Sheed & Ward, 1974),
passim;
see also Joan Simpson Burns,
The Awkward Embrace: The Creative Artist and the Institution in America
(Knopf, 1975), esp. ch. 22; led Solotaroff, “The Literary-Industrial Complex,”
New Republic,
vol. 196, no. 23 (June 8, 1987), pp. 28-45.
[
Aldridge on the modern novel
]: Aldridge, “The State of the Novel,”
Commentary,
vol. 64, no. 4 (October 1977), pp. 44-52, esp. pp. 45-47, quoted at p. 46; see also Warner Berthoff, “The Novel in a Time of Troubles,” in Berthoff,
Fictions and Events
(E. P. Dutton, 1971), pp. 102-17; Philip Roth, “Writing American Fiction” (1960), in Roth,
Reading Myself and Others
(Farrar, Straus & Giroux,1975), pp. 117-35; Janet Groth, “Fiction vs. anti-fiction revisited,”
Commonweal,
vol. 106, no. 9 (May 11, 1979), pp. 269-71; Joseph Epstein, “A Conspiracy of Silence,”
Harper
’
s,
vol. 255, no. 1530 (November 1977), pp. 77-92.
[
New York intellectuals
]: Alan M. Wald,
The New York Intellectuals: The Rise and Decline of the Anti-Stalinist Left from the 1930s to the 1980s
(University of North Carolina Press, 1987); Alexander Bloom,
Prodigal Sons: The New York Intellectuals and Their World
(Oxford University Press, 1986); Bernard Rosenberg and Ernest Goldstein, eds.,
Creators and Disturbers: Reminiscences by Jewish Intellectuals of New York
(Columbia University Press, 1982); Kostelanetz; James B. Gilbert,
Writers and Partisans: A History of Literary Radicalism in America
(Wiley, 1968); Irving Howe, “The New York Intellectuals,” in Howe,
Decline of the New
(Harcourt, 1970), pp. 211-68; Richard H. King, “Up from Radicalism,”
American Jewish History,
vol. 75, no. 1 (September 1985), pp. 61-85. [“
Gutter-worldliness
”]: Frank Kermode, “A Herd of Independent Minds” (review of Bloom),
New York Times Book Review,
April 27, 1986, pp. 12-13, Howe quoted at p. 12.
617
[
Kostelanetz on
“
literary mob
”]
:
Kostelanetz, p. 75 and part 1
passim.
[
PEN Congress
]: Rhoda Koenig, “At Play in the Fields of the Word,”
New York,
vol. 19, no. 5 (February 3, 1986), pp. 40-47; Edward Rothstein, “Lead Me Not into PEN Station,”
Ne?? Republic,
vol. 194, no. 8 (February 24, 1986), pp. 20-23; “A Rampancy of Writers,”
Time,
vol. 127, no. 2 (January 13, 1986), p. 22; “Independent States of Mind,”
ibid.,
vol. 127, no. 4 (January 27, 1986), pp. 74-77; “Mightier Than the Sword,”
Newsweek,
vol. 107, no. 4 (January 27, 1986), pp. 60-61; see also William H. Gass, “East vs. West in Lithuania: Rising Tempers at a Writers’ Meeting,”
New York Times Book Review,
February 2, 1986, pp. 3, 29, 31.
[“
Your Administration
”]; text of letter in
Nation,
vol. 242, no. 4 (February 1, 1986), p. 117; see also Maria Margaronis and Elizabeth Pochoda, “Bad Manners & Bad Faith,”
ibid.,
pp. 116-19; Koenig, pp. 40-4 1; “Independent States,” pp. 74-75; Walter Goodman, “Shultz Faces Critics in Speech Opening 48th PEN Assembly,”
New York Times,
January 13, 1986, pp. 1, C11.
[“
Most ideologically right-wing
”]: Doctorow, “Why Invite Shultz?,”
New York Times,
January 11, 1986, p. 23.
[“
Catatonic left
”]: quoted in “Mightier Than the Sword,” p. 60.
[
Shultz
’
s address
]: excerpts in
New York Times,
January 19, 1986, sect. 4, p. 6.
618
[“
With you all the way
”]: quoted in Koenig, p. 41.
[“
First thing I get
”]: quoted in
New York Times,
January 14, 1986, p. G12.
[“
Even if you say
”]: quoted in Koenig, p. 42.
[“
In the eyes of foreigners
”]: quoted in Walter Goodman, “Norman Mailer Offers a PEN Post-mortem,”
New York Times,
January 27, 1986, p. C24.
[
Mailer on Congress
“
friendships and feuds
”]:
ibid.
[
Women
’
s protest
]: Paley quoted in Koenig, p. 47; Mailer and Jong in “Independent States,” p. 77; Macdonald in “Mightier Than the Sword,” p. 61; Edwin McDowell, “Women at PEN Caucus Demand a Greater Role,”
New York Times,
January 17, 1986, p. C26; McDowell, “PEN Congress Ends with a Protest,”
ibid.,
January 18, 1986, p. 11.
618
[“
Failure of the ruling ideologies
”]: excerpts from remarks in
New York Times,
January 19, 1986, sect. 4, p. 6.
[“
Ring of romantic anarchism
”]: quoted in “Independent States,” p. 77; see also Amos Oz, “A Writer’s Guide,”
New Republic,
vol. 194, no. 8 (February 24, 1986), p. 28.
618-19
[“
Fully clawed
”]: Ozick, “Literature Lost,”
New York Times,
January 22, 1986, p. A23; see also Ozick, “Innovation and Redemption: What Literature Means,” in Ozick,
Art & Ardor
(Knopf, 1983), pp. 238-48.
619
[
Bellow-Grass debate]
: Bellow quoted in “Independent States,” p. 77; Koenig, pp. 44-45; see also Leon Wieseltier, “A Fable,”
New Republic,
vol. 194, no. 8 (February 24, 1986), pp. 26-29; Günter Grass, “The Artist’s Freedom of Opinion in Our Society,” in Grass,
On Writing and Politics, 1967-1983,
Ralph Manheim, trans. (Harcourt, 1985), pp. 127-36.
[“
Censorship in the U.S.A.
”]: “Mightier Than the Sword,” p. 61;
New York Times,
January 16, 1986, p. G17; see also Eli M. Oboler, ed.,
Censorship and Education
(H. W. Wilson Co., 1981).
[
Updike on postal service
]: quoted in “Independent States,” p. 75; see also Updike, “One Writer’s Testimony,”
National Review,
vol. 30, no. 21 (May 26, 1978), p. 641.
620
[
Jameson
“
thinness
”
of American life
]: James,
The American Scene
(Scribner, 1946), pp. 44, 54, and
passim;
see also James,
Hawthorne
(Harper, 1880), pp. 41-43.
[“
Absence of a desire
”]: Bellow, “The Writer as Moralist,”
Atlantic,
vol. 211, no. 3 (March 1963), pp. 58-62, quoted at p. 62; see also Bellow, “Where Do We Go from Here: The Future of Fiction,” in Irving Mallow, ed.,
Saul Bellow and the Critics
(New York University Press, 1967), pp. 211-20; Bellow, “The Nobel Lecture,”
American Scholar,
vol. 46, no. 3 (1977), pp. 316-25; Bellow, “Literature in the Age of Technology,” in
Technology and the Frontiers of Knowledge
(Doubleday, 1975), pp. 3-22.
[
Foreign authors on contemporary American willing
]: quoted in “Where’s the New Faulkner?,”
U.S. News & World Report,
vol. 100, no. 3 (January 27, 1986), p. 65; see also Aleksandr Mulyarchik, “The New American Literature,”
World Press Review,
vol. 30, no. 4 (April 1983), p. 51; Edward Hoagland, “Americans Exclude the Globe,”
New York Times,
January 11, 1986, p. 23.
621
[“
Independent, self-generating
”]: John Russell,
The Meanings of Modern Art
(Harper, 1981), p. 291.
[
Late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century American art
]:
ibid.,
pp. 291-96; Meyer Schapiro,
Modern Art: 19th and 20th Centuries
(George Braziller, 1982), pp. 135-78; Arthur Frank Wertheim,
The New York Little Renaissance: Iconoclasm, Modernism, and Nationalism in American Culture, 1908-1917
(New York University Press, 1976); Peter Selz,
Art in Our Times: A Pictorial History, 1890-1980
(Harry N. Abrams, 1981), chs. 1-3
passim;
Peter Conrad,
The Art of the City: Views and Versions of New York
(Oxford University Press, 1984).