From Publishers Weekly
In this collection of more than 100 pieces, New Yorker writer Schell analyzes and interrelates the conduct of the war in Vietnam, the Nixon administration's Southeast Asian policy and Watergate. Remarkable in penetration and with prophetic insight, the articles, culled from the "Notes and Comment" section of the magazine, reflect broodingly upon the major issues of that era, including the administration's attempts to intimidate the press and the threat to the Constitution on the part of President Nixon, Vice-President Spiro Agnew and Attorney-General John Mitchell. In well-crafted prose, the essays convey with stirring eloquence a growing alarm over "the inverted moral order" that prevailed in the Nixon White House. Shawn, New Yorker former editor, rightly notes in the preface that the pieces constitute "not only an incomparable political document but also a literary work that will endure."
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
In content and coverage this collection of columns by this former New Yorker writer is almost identical to his The Time of Illusion (Knopf, 1976). Undoubtedly they were the original sources for that book. The columns have worn better than the book; they give the reader a taste of the heat of those turbulent years. Schell's lucid yet passionate criticisms of the conduct of the U.S. war in Vietnam and the misdeeds of the Nixon administration are based on what he felt were threats to both the constitutional process (with Nixon going above the law) and the integrity of language (the government only caring that their press communications were credible, if not truthful). His columns are a model of informed dissent in a democratic system.
- Carl A. Trocki, Georgetown Univ., Washington, D.C.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
- Carl A. Trocki, Georgetown Univ., Washington, D.C.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
