Navasky, Victor and Vanden Heuvel, Katrina, eds. The Best of The Nation:
Selections from the Independent Magazine of Politics and Culture. New York:
Thunder's Mouth Press / Nation Books, 2000. 607 pages.
The Nation started in 1865 and today it's a curious rag. Any
working-class consciousness has by now given way to cultural sectarianism.
American imperialism is still objectionable, but mainly because the CIA
and Pentagon don't have enough women, gays, and people of color in the top
ranks. Massive amounts of ink are spent on obscure debates that reflect
a strange fascination with literary or academic correctness. Many of the
writers are elite liberals who can afford to boycott Wal-Mart, but what
the magazine really needs is the outrage of someone who finds himself on
the receiving end of U.S. policy. When this magazine does get political
on occasion, no conspiracy theories are ever allowed.
This book is a collection of about five dozen selections from
1990-1999. A handful of good articles made it into this mix: a portrait
of Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers, an account of a fight over
the publication of internal documents from Brown-Williamson (Big Tobacco),
separate articles about Rupert Murdoch and Louis Farrakhan, and a piece
describing conditions in Chile in 1998. Stephen F. Cohen and Katrina vanden
Heuvel know a lot about Russia, but unfortunately, only a couple of pages
from each of them made it into this volume.
ISBN 1-56025-267-7
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