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ISBN:
9780385521086
Publication Date:
October 2007
Page Count:
688
Was € now € 7.00
Book Description:
The Atlantic Monthly was founded in 1857 by a remarkable group
that included some of the towering figures of nineteenth-century
intellectual life: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Henry
Wadsworth Longfellow, and James Russell Lowell.For 150 years, the
magazine has continued to honor its distinguished pedigree by publishing
many of America’s most prominent political commentators, journalists,
historians, humorists, storytellers, and poets.
Throughout the
magazine’s history, Atlantic contributors have unflinchingly
confronted the fundamental subjects of the American experience: war and
peace, science and religion, the conundrum of race, the role of women,
the plight of the cities, the struggle to preserve the environment, the
strengths and failings of our politics, and, especially, America’s
proper place in the world.
This extraordinary anthology brings
together many of the magazine’s most acclaimed and influential articles.
“Broken Windows,” by James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling, took on the
problem of inner-city crime and gave birth to a new way of thinking
about law enforcement. “The Roots of Muslim Rage,” by Bernard Lewis,
prophetically warned of the dangers posed to the West by rising Islamic
extremism. “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” by Martin Luther King, Jr.,
became one of the twentieth century’s most famous reflections upon—and
calls for—racial equality. And “The Fifty-first State,” by James
Fallows, previewed in astonishing detailthe mess in which America would
find itself in Iraqa full six months before the invasion.The collection
also highlights some of The Atlantic’s finest moments in
fiction and poetry—from the likes of Twain, Whitman, Frost, Hemingway,
Nabokov, and Bellow—affirming the central role of literature in defining
and challenging American society.
Rarely has an anthology so
vividly captured America. Serious and comic, touching and tough, The
American Idea paints a fascinating portrait of who we are, where we
have come from, and where we are going.