Fall 2024

We met by chance on the subway platform. My friend was on her way to the Cherry Lane “Theatre of the Absurd”: Ionesco’s “The Killer,” if I recall. Would I go along? I declined with thanks; I was on the …

To judge by the American press, one would think the third general election of independent India began and ended with the story of Krishna Menon! The moment his victory became clear, the press lost further interest and to this day …

We now have sufficient information confirming that the Chinese Communists have approached American officials and private exporters with proposals to buy large quantities of American surplus wheat and grains to feed China’s hungry millions. One such report states that China …

WEEKEND IN DINLOCK, by Clancy Sigal. Houghton Mifflin Co. 197 pages, 1960. THE WAR IN ALGERIA, by Jules Roy. Grove Press. An Evergreen Target Book. 128 pages, 1961. Here are two books—neither very large—both fitting quite easily into the pocket …

Toward Calcutta—late July: A city turbulent, jittery, easily upset. It is twenty years since my last visit, yet the memory of this city is a vivid one. Calcutta is the home of Indian terrorist nationalism, its people quick and volatile, …

It isn’t easy to return to India after a twenty-year absence. So much has happened and so much changed. There is a whole new generation that has known freedom since 1947. What will it be like? Will one find the …

An editorial in the April, 1960 issue of Socialist Comentary begins as follows: It would be stupid to deny that demoralization has overtaken the Labor Party since the election. What could be more depressing than the contrast between the position …

Editors: It is hard to believe that a more incorrect impression as to the state of opinion in the British Labor Party could be created than that produced by Stanley Plastrik in the Winter 1960 DISSENT. Nationalization is presented as …

There is a strong temptation to make the best of British Labor’s defeat. After all, the popular vote shows a Tory margin of only 1½ million votes out of 30 million and a careful breakdown indicates that, within many electoral …

Puerto Ricans and Sentimentality Editors: I suppose if one were to total up the comments of Stanley Plastrik in his review of my book, Island in the City, [DISSENT, Spring 1959], the scales would be slightly more weighted on the …

ISLAND IN THE CITY, by Dan Wakefield. Houghton Mifflin Dan Wakefield has written a fine human document about the 600,000 Puerto Ricans in New York City. It is a little on the sentimental side (perhaps in reaction to those who …

ALGERIA: THE REALITIES, by Germaine Tillion. Alfred A. Knopf, New York. 1958. Germaine Tillion’s Algeria is a beautifully written, but seriously flawed, book. The author, an ethnologist and a leading French authority on the sociology of Algeria, has put together …

WHITE MAN, LISTEN!, by Richard Wright No one knows better than Richard Wright that the white man has not listened for a century, has neither plans nor intention to start listening now and probably couldn’t listen if he wanted to. …

This collection of essays and studies on the Middle East was brought together by its editor with a novel purpose in mind. The people of this area of the world are struggling to adjust to new conditions; their loyalties conflict …

The June decisions of the Supreme Court were major decisions; this is so even if those to whom the decisions applied directly, or who had initiated the actions that led through the federal courts, have already left the scene. The …