What does our email say about how we spend our days? Last December, the Cambridge classicist Mary Beard, who blogs for TLS, posted a recap of a day’s worth of email from her inbox. The summary gives you a sense of what Beard called “a Don’s (real) life” and what she’s asked to think about… Continue reading »
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“Democracy”: Dream City
This is the sixth post in a conversation that Mark Athitakis and I have been having on our blogs about Henry Adams’ 1880 novel, “Democracy.” See Mark’s previous post, “Media Circuses and New Monuments,” here. Mark, I take some comfort from your comment that Adams does have a soft spot for the city and just… Continue reading »
“Democracy”: Swamp Creatures and Monuments
This is the fourth post in a cross-blog conversation Mark Athitakis and I are having about Henry Adams’ novel “Democracy.” See Mark’s most recent post, “Skepticism Versus Cynicism,” here. Mark, So it’s as I feared, and Adams is a hard case. To quote you, “there’s no silver lining he can’t find a storm cloud in,”… Continue reading »
“Democracy”: The Romance of Politics
This is the second post in a discussion here and on Mark Athitakis’s blog, American Fiction Notes, about Henry Adams’ novel “Democracy.” which was published anonymously in 1880. See Mark’s first post in the conversation here, and a useful background piece on the book’s long history he found here. Mark, Adams does get off some… Continue reading »
“Democracy” in (re)action
For someone who grew up in Washington, D.C., I am not very well read in the literature of the city–the political literature, that is. I haven’t read many of the political novels set here. That has been partly a deliberate choice, a desire to concentrate more on the extra-political creative possibilities of this town. A… Continue reading »
