American Studies (33 page)
Authors: Louis Menand
THE LONG SHADOW OF JAMES B. CONANT
1
James Hershberg, James B. Conant: Harvard to Hiroshima and the Making of the Nuclear Age
(New York: Knopf, 1993), 222. Unless otherwise noted, information about Conant’s life and his activities during the war is drawn from this source.
(New York: Knopf, 1993), 222. Unless otherwise noted, information about Conant’s life and his activities during the war is drawn from this source.
2
Interim Committee minutes, May 31, 1945; quoted in Hershberg,
James B. Conant, 225.
James B. Conant, 225.
3
Hershberg is the first historian to have uncovered this story.
4
James B. Conant to Harvey H. Bundy, September 23,1946; quoted in Hershberg,
James B. Conant, 293.
James B. Conant, 293.
5
Henry L. Stimson to Felix Frankfurter, December 12,1946; quoted in Hershberg,
James B. Conant, 295.
James B. Conant, 295.
6
James B. Conant to McGeorge Bundy, November 30, 1946; quoted in Hershberg,
James B. Conant,
297
.
James B. Conant,
297
.
7
Henry L. Stimson, “The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb,”
Harper’s
(February 1947), 106.
Harper’s
(February 1947), 106.
8
In his history of nuclear policy, published in 1988, McGeorge Bundy referred briefly to his own role as “scribe” in Stimson’s article, which he by then felt made the deliberations appear more thorough than they were; but he does not mention Conant’s involvement. He also does not present a rationale, official or otherwise, for the Nagasaki bomb. It is sometimes stressed that the question of the number of targets was not submitted to the purview of the Interim Committee; but it must have been within the purview of someone. Whether intended as such or not, that was the terror bomb, for it suggested a willingness to use the
weapon without compunction: it was not in any sense a “demonstration,” since the demonstration had already been made at Hiroshima. See Danger
and
Survival:
Choices
about
the Bomb in the First Fifty Years (New York: Random House, 1988).
weapon without compunction: it was not in any sense a “demonstration,” since the demonstration had already been made at Hiroshima. See Danger
and
Survival:
Choices
about
the Bomb in the First Fifty Years (New York: Random House, 1988).
9
Hershberg, James B. Conant, 299.
10
Sigmund Diamond,
Compromised Campus: The Collaboration of Universities with the Intelligence Community
(NewYork: Oxford University Press, 1992).
Compromised Campus: The Collaboration of Universities with the Intelligence Community
(NewYork: Oxford University Press, 1992).
11
SAC Boston to FBI Director, February 9, 1949; quoted in Diamond,
Compromised Campus,
47.
Compromised Campus,
47.
12
Diamond,
Compromised Campus,
112.
Compromised Campus,
112.
13
Hershberg,
James B. Conant, 520.
James B. Conant, 520.
14
Quoted in Hershberg,
James B. Conant, 755.
James B. Conant, 755.
15
See Nicholas Lemann,
The Big Test: The Secret History of the American Meritocracy
(New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999); and Morton Keller and Phyllis Keller,
Making Harvard Modern: The Rise of America’s University (New York:
Oxford University Press, 2001), 13—169.
The Big Test: The Secret History of the American Meritocracy
(New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999); and Morton Keller and Phyllis Keller,
Making Harvard Modern: The Rise of America’s University (New York:
Oxford University Press, 2001), 13—169.
16
James B. Conant, “Wanted: American Radicals,” Atlantic Monthly 171 (May 1943): 43
17
James B. Conant, Slums and Suburbs (NewYork: McGraw-Hill, 1961), 34.
18
W. B. Carnochan,
The Battleground of the Curriculum: Liberal Education and American Experience
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993), 93.
The Battleground of the Curriculum: Liberal Education and American Experience
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993), 93.
19
General Education in a Free Society: Report of the Harvard Committee
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1945), 102. “The root argument for using, wherever possible, great works in literature courses,” the report explains, “is briefly this: ours is at present a centrifugal culture in extreme need of unifying forces” (108). Elsewhere, the authors note that “open-mindedness without belief is apt to lead to the opposite extreme of fanaticism” (78). Specifically, the report calls for general courses in three areas: humanities, social science (also a “great texts” course), and natural science. One chapter is devoted to the secondary school curriculum, and proposes a program of general instruction; another is concerned with Harvard’s curriculum, and recommends a more qualified mix of core courses and distribution requirements. The obstacle to core requirements (as opposed to distribution requirements) at the college level is always the reluctance of the disciplines to participate in general instruction, which is implicitly “interdisciplinary” and nonprofessionalized.
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1945), 102. “The root argument for using, wherever possible, great works in literature courses,” the report explains, “is briefly this: ours is at present a centrifugal culture in extreme need of unifying forces” (108). Elsewhere, the authors note that “open-mindedness without belief is apt to lead to the opposite extreme of fanaticism” (78). Specifically, the report calls for general courses in three areas: humanities, social science (also a “great texts” course), and natural science. One chapter is devoted to the secondary school curriculum, and proposes a program of general instruction; another is concerned with Harvard’s curriculum, and recommends a more qualified mix of core courses and distribution requirements. The obstacle to core requirements (as opposed to distribution requirements) at the college level is always the reluctance of the disciplines to participate in general instruction, which is implicitly “interdisciplinary” and nonprofessionalized.
20
“The President’s Commission on Higher Education,” in
American
Higher Education:
A Documentary History, ed. Richard Hofstadter and Wilson Smith (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961), 2: 989—90.
American
Higher Education:
A Documentary History, ed. Richard Hofstadter and Wilson Smith (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961), 2: 989—90.
21
Roger Geiger, “The Ten Generations of American Higher Education,” in
American Higher Education in the Twenty-First Century: Social, Political, and Economic Challenges,
ed. Philip G. Altbach, Robert O. Berdahl, and Patricia J. Gumport (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999), 61.
American Higher Education in the Twenty-First Century: Social, Political, and Economic Challenges,
ed. Philip G. Altbach, Robert O. Berdahl, and Patricia J. Gumport (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999), 61.
22
U.S. Bureau of the Census,
Historical
Statistics of the United States,
Colonial
Times to 1970 (Washington, D.C., 1975), I: 382, 387; Walter P. Metzger, “The Academic Profession in the United States,” in The Academic Profession: National, Disciplinary,
and Institutional
Settings, ed. Burton R. Clark (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), 124.
Historical
Statistics of the United States,
Colonial
Times to 1970 (Washington, D.C., 1975), I: 382, 387; Walter P. Metzger, “The Academic Profession in the United States,” in The Academic Profession: National, Disciplinary,
and Institutional
Settings, ed. Burton R. Clark (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), 124.
23
Geiger, “Ten Generations,” 62.
24
Elizabeth A. Duffy and Idana Goldberg,
Crafting
a Class:
College Admissions and
Financial Aid, 1955—1994 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998), 22. See also Marvin Lazerson, “The Disappointments of Success: Higher Education After World War II,” Annals of
the American Academy
of Political
and
Social Science 559 (1998): 72.
Crafting
a Class:
College Admissions and
Financial Aid, 1955—1994 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998), 22. See also Marvin Lazerson, “The Disappointments of Success: Higher Education After World War II,” Annals of
the American Academy
of Political
and
Social Science 559 (1998): 72.
25
This is the conclusion of Duffy and Goldberg’s
Crafting a
Class, a study of admissions policy at sixteen Ohio and Massachusetts liberal arts colleges.
Crafting a
Class, a study of admissions policy at sixteen Ohio and Massachusetts liberal arts colleges.
26
National Center for Education Statistics, “Total Fall Enrollment in Institutions of Higher Education, by Attendance Status, Sex of Student, and Control of Institution: 1947 to 1997,” “Enrollment of Persons 14 to 34 Years of Age in Institutions of Higher Education, by Race/Ethnicity Sex, and Year of College: October 1965 to October 1998,” Digest of Education Statistics (Washington, D.C., 1999).
27
Statistic calculated from tables in the Chronicle of Higher Education, “Almanac Issue, 1995—96” (Washington, D.C., 1996).
28
Martin J. Finkelstein, Robert K. Seal, and Jack H. Schuster, The New Academic Generation: A Profession in Transformation (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), 26—32.
29
National Center for Education Statistics, “Doctor’s Degrees Conferred by Institutions of Higher Education, by Racial/Ethnic Group and Sex of Student: 1976—77 to 1996—97,” Digest of Education Statistics, 1999.
30
Regents of the
University of California
v.
Bakke, 438 U.S. 265 (1978).
University of California
v.
Bakke, 438 U.S. 265 (1978).
31
The landmark study identifying these changes is Ernest L. Boyer, Scholarship
Reconsidered:
Priorities
of the
Professoriate (San Francisco: Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 1990); see also Bruce Kimball, The Condition of American
Liberal
Education: Pragmatism
and a
Changing Tradition (New York: College Entrance Examinations Board, 1995). On the etiology of these changes, see Louis Menand, The Marketplace of Ideas (New York: American Council of Learned Societies, 2001).
Reconsidered:
Priorities
of the
Professoriate (San Francisco: Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 1990); see also Bruce Kimball, The Condition of American
Liberal
Education: Pragmatism
and a
Changing Tradition (New York: College Entrance Examinations Board, 1995). On the etiology of these changes, see Louis Menand, The Marketplace of Ideas (New York: American Council of Learned Societies, 2001).
32
James B. Conant, Education in
a
Divided World: The Function of the Public Schools in
Our
Unique Society (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1948), 232.
a
Divided World: The Function of the Public Schools in
Our
Unique Society (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1948), 232.
THE LAST EMPEROR: WILLIAM S. PALEY
1
Sally Bedell Smith,
In All
His Glory: The Life of William S. Paley (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990), 16. Information about Paley is drawn from this book.
In All
His Glory: The Life of William S. Paley (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990), 16. Information about Paley is drawn from this book.
2
See Erik Barnouw, A History of Broadcasting in the United States, 3 vols. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1966—70), published in a one-volume abridgment
as Tube of Plenty: The Evolution of
American
Television (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975); and, especially, for the analysis that follows, J. Fred MacDonald, One Nation Under Television: The Rise
and
Decline of Network TV (
New
York: Pantheon, 1990). On the emergence of the postnetwork world, see Ken Auletta, Three Blind Mice: How the
TV Networks
Lost Their Way (New York: Random House, 1991).
as Tube of Plenty: The Evolution of
American
Television (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975); and, especially, for the analysis that follows, J. Fred MacDonald, One Nation Under Television: The Rise
and
Decline of Network TV (
New
York: Pantheon, 1990). On the emergence of the postnetwork world, see Ken Auletta, Three Blind Mice: How the
TV Networks
Lost Their Way (New York: Random House, 1991).
3
For these examples, see MacDonald, One Nation Under Television, 107.
4
Smith,
In All
His Glory, 91.
In All
His Glory, 91.
5
MacDonald, One Nation
Under Television,
129.
Under Television,
129.
6
Smith,
In All
His Glory, 140.
In All
His Glory, 140.
A FRIEND WRITES: THE OLD NEW YORKER
1
Quoted in Ben Yagoda, About
Town:
The “New
Yorker” and
the World It Made (New York: Scribner, 2000), 339. Yagoda’s is one of several studies of the magazine published since its DNA (both editorial and business) was changed with the appointment of Tina Brown as editor in 1992; see also Mary F. Corey, World through
a
Monocle: “The
New Yorker” at Midcentury
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999); and Thomas Kunkel, Genius in Disguise: Harold Ross of “The New
Yorker”
(New York: Random House, 1995). There have also been several autobiographical accounts: Renata Adler, Gone: The Last Days
of
“The New Yorker” (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1999); Ved Mehta, Remembering
Mr. Shawn’s “New Yorker”
: The Invisible Art of Editing (Woodstock, N.Y: Overlook Press, 1998); Lillian Ross, Here but Not Here: A Love Story (New York: Random House, 1998); and Alec Wilkinson, My Mentor: A Young Man’s Friendship
with William Maxwell
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2002).
Town:
The “New
Yorker” and
the World It Made (New York: Scribner, 2000), 339. Yagoda’s is one of several studies of the magazine published since its DNA (both editorial and business) was changed with the appointment of Tina Brown as editor in 1992; see also Mary F. Corey, World through
a
Monocle: “The
New Yorker” at Midcentury
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999); and Thomas Kunkel, Genius in Disguise: Harold Ross of “The New
Yorker”
(New York: Random House, 1995). There have also been several autobiographical accounts: Renata Adler, Gone: The Last Days
of
“The New Yorker” (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1999); Ved Mehta, Remembering
Mr. Shawn’s “New Yorker”
: The Invisible Art of Editing (Woodstock, N.Y: Overlook Press, 1998); Lillian Ross, Here but Not Here: A Love Story (New York: Random House, 1998); and Alec Wilkinson, My Mentor: A Young Man’s Friendship
with William Maxwell
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2002).
2
Quoted in Linda H. Davis, Onward
and
Upward: A Biography
of Katharine
White (New York: Harper and Row, 1987), 239.
and
Upward: A Biography
of Katharine
White (New York: Harper and Row, 1987), 239.
3
See Norman Mailer, The Armies
of
the Night: History as a Novel, The Novel as History (NewYork: New American Library, 1968), 26.
of
the Night: History as a Novel, The Novel as History (NewYork: New American Library, 1968), 26.
4
James Thurber, The Years with Ross (Boston: Little, Brown, 1959), 96.
5
See Michael Wood, “Pictures from an Institution,” New York Review of Books, May 15,1975,13—14.
6
“Notes and Comment,”
New Yorker,
July 6, 1968, 17.
New Yorker,
July 6, 1968, 17.
7
“Notes and Comment,”
New Yorker,
July 20, 1968,25.
New Yorker,
July 20, 1968,25.
8
Robert Warshow, “E. B. White and the
New Yorker”
(1947), The
Immediate Experience:
Movies, Comics, Theatre,
and
Other Aspects of Popular Culture (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1962), 106.
New Yorker”
(1947), The
Immediate Experience:
Movies, Comics, Theatre,
and
Other Aspects of Popular Culture (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1962), 106.
9
Gigi Mahon, The Last Days of the “New
Yorker”
(New York: McGraw-Hill, 1988), 81.
Yorker”
(New York: McGraw-Hill, 1988), 81.
10
“Notes and Comment,”
New Yorker,
April 22,1985, 35—36.
New Yorker,
April 22,1985, 35—36.
NORMAN MAILER IN HIS TIME
1
Norman Mailer, The Naked
and
the Dead (New York: Henry Holt, 1948), 718.
and
the Dead (New York: Henry Holt, 1948), 718.
2
Norman Mailer, “The White Negro” (1956),
Advertisements for Myself
(New York: Putnam, 1959), 347.
Advertisements for Myself
(New York: Putnam, 1959), 347.
3
Peter Manso,
Mailer:
His Life
and
Times (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1985), 254. Manso’s book is an oral history More conventional biographies of Mailer are Hilary Mills,
Mailer:
A Biography (New York: Empire, 1982); and Mary V. Dearborn,
Mailer:
A Biography (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1999). Mailer has expressed disapproval of Manso’s and Dearborn’s books.
Mailer:
His Life
and
Times (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1985), 254. Manso’s book is an oral history More conventional biographies of Mailer are Hilary Mills,
Mailer:
A Biography (New York: Empire, 1982); and Mary V. Dearborn,
Mailer:
A Biography (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1999). Mailer has expressed disapproval of Manso’s and Dearborn’s books.
4
Mailer, “The White Negro,” Advertisements for
Myself,
355.
Myself,
355.
5
Mailer, “The White Negro,” Advertisements for Myself, 351.
6
Norman Mailer,
Cannibals and
Christians (New York: Dial Press, 1966), 2.
Cannibals and
Christians (New York: Dial Press, 1966), 2.
7
Norman Mailer, Of
a Fire on
the Moon (Boston: Little, Brown, 1970), 131.
a Fire on
the Moon (Boston: Little, Brown, 1970), 131.
8
Norman Mailer, “By Heaven Inspired” (1992), The Time of Our Time (New York: Random House, 1998), 1104.
9
Norman Mailer,
Oswald’s
Tale: An American Mystery (New York: Random House, 1995),198.
Oswald’s
Tale: An American Mystery (New York: Random House, 1995),198.
10
Mailer, “A Review of American Psycho” (1991), The Time
of Our
Time, 1075, 1077.
of Our
Time, 1075, 1077.
11
Mailer, “A Review of American Psycho,” The Time
of Our Time,
1075.
of Our Time,
1075.
12
Mailer, “Madonna” (1994), The Time of Our Time, 1131, 1127.
13
Norman Mailer, “Superman Comes to the Supermarket” (1960), The Presidential Papers (New York: Putnam, 1963), 45—46.
14
John Aldridge, “An Interview with Norman Mailer,” Partisan Review 47 (1980): 182. Mailer discusses Capote’s book in the interview.
15
Norman Mailer, The
Executioner’s
Song (Boston: Little, Brown, 1979), 9.
Executioner’s
Song (Boston: Little, Brown, 1979), 9.
Other books
Ween's Chocolate and Cheese (33 1/3) by Shteamer, Hank
March Mischief by Ron Roy
Case File - a Collection of Nameless Detective Stories by Bill Pronzini
The Beginning of Us by Corona, Brandy Jeffus
The Man She Should Have Married by Patricia Kay
Dead Boys by RICHARD LANGE
Gecko Gladiator by Ali Sparkes
Home For the Homicide (A Do-It-Yourself Mystery) by Bentley, Jennie
Time to Die by John Gilstrap
Area 51: Excalibur-6 by Robert Doherty
