The New Republic Reader: Eighty Years of Opinion and Debate

As this thick compendium attests, The New Republic has been one of the nation's most vital journals of current affairs since its founding in 1914. Among its early contributors were Rebecca West, Alfred Kazin, George Orwell, John Dewey and Edmund Wilson; in more recent years, Ronald Steel, Adam Michnik, Arthur M. Schlesinger and Irving Howe. Sections on world affairs, American issues, racial matters and debates among liberals embrace challenging, thoughtful, lively writing. Wickenden, the magazine's former managing editor, and now national affairs editor at Newsweek , contributes a frank introduction that traces TNR 's role in defining liberalism and acknowledges its neoliberal drift since Martin Peretz bought the magazine in 1974. While one might quibble with some of Wickenden's selections (the section on race lacks hard-edged voices, the magazine's cultural coverage gets short play), the volume remains consistently stimulating. (Aug.)