Left with the Arts

The Cultural Front:
The Laboring of American Culture in the Twentieth Century
by Michael Denning
Verso, 1996 556 pp $25, cloth; $20, paper

In 1950, Theodor Geisel (Dr. Seuss) published Yertle the Turtle. A brief summary of this illustrated story in rhyming couplets for readers who may not have a copy on hand: The happy king of a pondful of contented reptiles suddenly gets infected with big ambitions. “I’m ruler,” explains Yertle, “of all that I s...