Left Hooks, Right Crosses: A Decade of Political Writing (Paperback)

by Christopher Hitchens (Editor), Christopher Caldwell (Editor) "In some places, the terms "left" and "right" have retained all their Cold War meaning..." (more)
Key Phrases: stun belt, militia movement, United States, New York, Bill Clinton (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal
As television has contributed to the decline in the traditional role of political parties, the broadcast media have gained an advantage over print. Politics is now "talking heads" entertainment with questionable standards. This collection, edited by journalists Caldwell (the Weekly Standard and New York Press) and Hitchens (Vanity Fair and the Nation), brings together three dozen reprinted articles (primarily from the Nation, the Progressive, the Weekly Standard, and National Review) by a variety of skillful writers (journalists, novelists, professors, etc.), such as Nat Hentoff, Tony Kushner, Susan Sontag, Benjamin DeMott, Arundhati Roy, Patrick Caddell, Jonathan Schell, Andrew Sullivan, David Frum, Harvey Mansfield, David Brooks, and Jonathan Rauch. The topics, mostly associated with the political wars of the 1990s, are equally diverse, ranging from personalities (Elian Gonzalez, Monica Lewinsky, Dorothy Day, and Bill Clinton) to issues such as impeachment, civil liberties, mass protests, nuclear weapons, Bosnia, feminism, the Bell Curve, and more. Though the writing is high quality, the brief introductions are weak. Supplied with the twist that Caldwell surveys the liberal articles and Hitchens the conservative ones, they fail to explain the purpose of the collection. In a time of tight library budgets, this is an optional purchase.
William D. Pederson, Louisiana State Univ., Shreveport
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
"Good bedside reading, with pieces that are short and digestible." -- Kirkus Reviews, September 15, 2002

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Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Nation Books (November 7, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1560254092
• ISBN-13: 978-1560254096
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #948,147 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good so far, especially Ferguson, September 24, 2003

By A Customer

I've not yet read the whole book but I've enjoyed the pieces I have read. Mainly, I wanted argue a bit of minutia with the reviewer from Canada. He (or she) says that, "There is a piece by Andrew Ferguson on Strunk and White, which complains that the common use of "he" to refer to an unknown person is gender-neutral." I'm not sure that statement is exactly true. Rather, I think Ferguson's complaint is about the myopia of the editors who revised Strunk and White on the "he" issue.

Ferguson certainly does point out that E.B. White complained that the "use of he to refer to an unknown person is gender-neutral." And, yes, I'm sure Ferguson basically agrees with White. But the point of his essay is not to turn back the clock on political correctness--it's to point out how the zeal of copyeditors to enforce p.c. standards in the language is slightly silly and even harmful, as it (judging by the errors and archaisms that they left in Strunk and White) leads them to neglect other areas of a text.

Like I said, minutia. Nevertheless, I think Ferguson needs defending. It's a terrific piece. Very sharp, funny, and even, in the end, sorta poignant.

Personal disclosure: I'm on the left and I don't agree with the use of "he" to refer to an unknown person. In fact, I argue strenuously, whenever the topic comes up, that American English should adopt "they" for that purpose, which is more-or-less the standard in British English now.

The left desperately needs a sense of humor....

16 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Something for everyone..., November 19, 2002

By	[e-mail] (Edmonton, Alberta Canada) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

...but not enough for anyone. Welcome to this collection of journalism from the right and left of the American political spectrum. For the left, is (or was) Christopher Hitchens, vigorous atheist and internationalist but also unmitigated and uncompromising hater of the Clintons! For the right, Christopher Caldwell, consistent supporter of the Republican Party but critical of its attacks on Clinton! They have come together to present their favorite examples of journalism as each one introduces the other side's journalism. Gee, doesn't that sound unpredictable and exciting! If this sounds more like the introduction of a television sitcom than a volume of intellectual debate, then congratulations, you've encountered the first problem with this collection. The rhetoric of partisan conflict, plus the indulgent flattery of the other side, with the special premium of "unpredicatibilty": there was a time when Christopher Hitchens was above this sort of thing. (In particular, in a November 1985 review of Charles Krauthammer.)

This sort of collection is almost guaranteed to win approval. After all no-one can agree with all the articles here. That is especially the case with the impeachement of Clinton, where there are articles for and against in both halves of the book, with the best one being Kenneth Anderson's opposition to it in the "right" side. So what that Caldwell writes in pseudo-populist vein of how the Democrats hold the presidency and both houses of Congress, something they've only done for two of the past 22 years? Instead we are to admire the book, and presumably the editors, for the wide variety of vigorously presented views. Perhaps. Highlights of the left side include Adolph Reed Jr's critique of The Bell Curve, Andrew Cohen on the fatuousness of "Generation X" buzz, Susan Sontag's lament for Bosnia, Benjamin DeMott's criticism of "civility," Marshall Berman on the Communist Manifesto, Arundhati Roy on India's nuclear bomb, and Nat Hentoff against speech codes. Highlights on the right side include Andrew Sullivan on why he published Charles Murray on the Bell Curve, Ruth Wisse on having an ex-Communist for a father, Bill Kauffmann in praise of Dorothy Day, John O'Sullivan and Thomas Fleming against the Kosovo war, and Kenneth Minogue's polemic against feminism.

Some of the contrasts do not do credit to the Right. Certainly I prefer Susan Sontag's elegy for Bosnia, to Thomas Fleming's whine over the Kosovo war. You could give me Nat Hentoff over David "I may or may not be lying" Brooks any day. And certainly Adolph Reed's criticism of The Bell Curve is much more damaging than Andrew Sullivan's defense of his decision to publish Charles Murray. Sullivan claims he was just defying political orthodoxy. (If he really wanted to challenge his reader's opinions, he could have published Noam Chomsky.) Hitchens praises the right for its wit; personally I only find Tucker Carlson's desperate efforts to avoid telemarketers amusing. It's a pity this collection didn't publish cartoons, so that the Left could have responded with Feiffer, Sorel, Grossman, Tom Tomorrow, Tom Toles or Tom the Dancing Bug.

What is missing? Well, there's no John Leonard or Mike Davis. There's nothing from the Village Voice, though I recall a very stimulating round table on Schindler's List, as well as Micaela Di Leonardo's Fall 1992 essay against the racial consensus of our times. There is little on culture, so on the one hand we miss Jonathan Rosenbaum and Jackson Lears, but on the other hand we escape Caldwell's suggestion that Steven Spielberg was soft on Nazism. One real omission is the absence of any feminist viewpoint: no Katha Pollitt, not that many women, and several anti-feminist pieces on the right. There is a thankfully brief piece by Harvey Mansfield that is insufferably smug. There is a piece by Andrew Ferguson on Strunk and White, which complains that the common use of "he" to refer to an unknown person is gender-neutral. Rubbish. If it was they would have used "she" just as often. Most appalling is a crude and long polemic by Pr. Kenneth Minogue, which blames feminism for the collapse of western civilization.

There is no shortage of flaws with this argument. For a start conservatives have been blaming feminism for this collapse ever since women started asking for the vote. Having been wrong in the past, Minogue offers the view that feminism has been irretrievably wrong since sometime in the seventies, that is when the laws were changed to ban husbands from raping their wives. Let us just take one example to point Minogue's fautity: "A melodrama of oppression was needed to fire up the new tribe...feminist doctrine thrives on horror stories of women not allowed to take degrees at Oxbridge until this century. By contrast with the horrors of the twentieth century...we may diagnose a certain lack of proportion." Three things to point out: First off, if we are going to use the Holocaust as our criterion of human suffering, then political correctness and all the other outrages the right feeds on are going to be very small beer indeed. Secondly feminists also point out such minor problems in women's lot as systematic discrimination, the denial of the vote, the double standard and sexual violence. Third, it's in poor taste for Minogue to sneer at university discrimination, since without his university degree no-one would pay more attention to Kenneth Minogue's views than they would to Kylie Minogue's. What was Caldwell thinking?