The Best of the Nation: Selections from the Independent Magazine of Politics and Culture [Paperback]

Gore Vidal (Author), Victor Navasky (Author), Katrina Vanden Heuvel (Author)

Book Description

Series: Nation Books | Publication Date: June 15, 2000

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?"

Editorial Reviews

From 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.DStephen L. Hupp, Urbana Univ., OH
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Its circulation is modest, but the Nation's contributors are first-rate. These selections from the 1990s (just one per author) produce (unintentionally, the editors confide) "a unique archive of the issues, values, institutions, and personalities which preoccupied, united and divided, and ultimately defined the independent, democratic left" in that decade. Cornel West remembers Michael Harrington; Deborah W. Meier discusses public school choice; Mike Davis considers Los Angeles' riot/uprising; Paco Ignacio Taibo II discusses the Zapatistas; Susan Faludi asks, "Does Maureen Dowd Have an Opinion?"; Michael Moore wonders, "Is the Left Nuts? (Or Is It Me?)." There's poetry from, among others, W. S. Merwin, Philip Levine, Allen Ginsberg, and Nation regular Calvin Trillin; and illustrations from, among others, Edward Sorel, David Levine, Art Spiegelman, and Gary Trudeau. The Gulf War and the drug war, the collapse of the U.S.S.R. and the impeachment of a president are but a few of the subjects discussed here. Lively, opinionated commentary on issues that matter. Mary Carroll
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 630 pages
• Publisher: Nation Books; 1st edition (June 15, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1560252677
• ISBN-13: 978-1560252672
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,030,962 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very interesting, August 27, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: The Best of the Nation: Selections from the Independent Magazine of Politics and Culture (Paperback)

I am not your typical Nation reader, not by any means. In fact I am pretty much so a right winger, but I was curious and thought I'd check out this collection. While I can't say it changed my mind any, in fact it might have done the exact opposite, this is a very interesting and well written piece of work. I do not agree with the politics of The Nation, but I must say they have some of the best contributors writing for them, and they do make you think about your own stances. If you actually agree with their politics, you probably already know about this book and have read it. If not, and you want to see what the other side believes, this is a great way to educate yourself.

5 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Closely Written Book, August 1, 2001

By 

David Baird - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Best of the Nation: Selections from the Independent Magazine of Politics and Culture (Paperback)

This book is for those who missed out on the ~500 issues it draws from, or those who're curious about the ultimate tastes of Victor Navasky, publisher, and Katrina Vanden Heuval, editor. How do you filter the best of ten years? Interesting to ponder. These two must have been taking notes the whole time.

TheNation is a magazine it is good to have discovered. I found it when some soul regularly put big piles of free issues on a table in the English building at my college. A subversive act, no? If you consider progress subversive. It was kind of strange to read at first. Who were all these people mentioned? What were these groups? But once you get in synch with the vibe, the magazine becomes truly exciting and audacious. I don't know how some of these writers became so intellectually powerful, so incisive at tearing apart the fabric of the consensus trance and revealing the bloody insides of what a DeLillo character called The Festival of Death. Which world is this? This book will help you know, with respect to whether you can be helped.

Is TheNation provincial? Some say so, but I think not. What about its coverage of Russia? Latin America? Africa? The Middle East? Asia? Europe? America is the focus, of course, but would we want it different? How can we influence lands far away if we don't yet know the secrets of our own land? Isn't the most powerful machine a good one to examine if we'd like to twist the world history vector? And if you want to get into the foreign more than the magazine itself gives you, there are lots of book recommendations to be had--books that will take you wherever you want to go, and what's more, books that will explore the world in ways you may not have even dreamed of.

No relevent aspect of reality goes unnoticed in the textuality of The Nation, the books, the readers. The perceptual net is tight--the neurotic denial of perspectives is fully minimized here. How much is going on? Can you help people? What about armchair radicals? I have nothing against sitting in chairs. I find myself reading this book, and thinking, I'm totally unable to participate in struggle for justice X, yet--in a certain way, reading about it is enough. If we can't save the victims, we can at least know of them. There is infinite Pain going on, and it's hard to influence an infinity, but any decrease in pain is meaningful. Everything is meaningful.

0 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Keep your "enemies" closer, July 23, 2002

By 

[e-mail] (Denver, Colorado, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Best of the Nation: Selections from the Independent Magazine of Politics and Culture (Paperback)

Vanden Heuvel is to the left what Rush Limbaugh is to the right. Objectivity be damned!

However, the authors state their positions passionately and persuasively. Like one of the reviewers stated previously, if you have a conservative bent, the articles will make you really think about your position. If, on the other hand, you are more liberally inclined, these articles won't say anything that you haven't already heard.