The Princeton Anthology of Writing

by McPhee, John

• ISBN13: 9780691086804
• ISBN10: 069108680X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-07-01
• Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr

Summary

In 1957--long before colleges awarded degrees in creative nonfiction and back when newspaper writing's reputation was tainted by the fish it wrapped--Princeton began honoring talented literary journalists. Since then, fifty-nine of the finest, most dedicated, and most decorated nonfiction writers have held the Ferris and McGraw professorships. This monumental volume harbors their favorite and often most influential works. Each contribution is rewarding reading, and collectively the selections validate journalism's ascent into the esteem of the academy and the reading public. Necessarily eclectic and delightfully idiosyncratic, the fifty-nine pieces are long and short, political and personal, comic and deadly serious. Students will be provoked by William Greider's pointed critique of the democracy industry, eerily entertained by Leslie Cockburn's fraternization with the Cali cartel, inspired by David K. Shipler's thoughts on race, unsettled by Haynes Johnson's account of Bay of Pigs survivors, and moved by Lucinda Frank's essay on a mother fighting to save a child born with birth defects. Many of the essays are finely crafted portraits: Charlotte Grimes's biography of her grandmother, Blair Clark's obituary for Robert Lowell, and Jane Kramer's affecting story of a woman hero of the French Resistance. Other contributions to savor include Harrison Salisbury on the siege of Leningrad, Landon Jones on the 1950s, Christopher Wren on Soviet mountaineering, James Gleick on technology, Gloria Emerson on Vietnam, Gina Kolata on Fermat's last theorem, and Roger Mudd on the media. Whether approached chronologically, thematically, randomly, or, as the editors order them, more intuitively, each suggests a perfect evening reading. Designed for students as well as general readers,The Princeton Anthology of Writingsplendidly attests to the elegance, eloquence, and endurance of fine nonfiction.

Table of Contents

Preface	v
John McPhee
Beauty for Ashes	3	(6)
David K. Shipler
A View of Mountains	9	(2)
Jonathan Schell
The Boat	11	(7)
Haynes Johnson
Josephine Guezou	18	(4)
Jane Kramer
Twentieth-Century Odyssey	22	(7)
Robert Donovan
A Farewell to Hue	29	(7)
Don Oberdorfer
Looking for Trouble	36	(5)
Leslie Cockburn
The Forthright Estate: In Praise of the Newspaper Column	41	(5)
Karl E. Meyer
Code of Ethics	46	(5)
Roger Mudd
Father of His Country	51	(8)
Paul Taylor
Workplace Discrimination	59	(7)
Stuart S. Taylor Jr.
Harassment by Kids: Are More Lawsuits the Answer?	62	(4)
Driver's Education	66	(6)
Larry L. King
People and Character	72	(3)
Irving Dilliard
Saving The Nation	75	(12)
Victor Navasky
Faith, Sex, Mystery	87	(7)
Richard Gilman
My Own Vox Pop	94	(5)
Richard Stengel
Stardom? They'd Rather Pass	95	(2)
Space Invaders	97	(2)
The Country Is at Crisis Point	99	(8)
Charlotte Grimes
Memo to Conservatives: Family Ties Are the Strongest Values of All	104	(3)
All Sentient Beings	107	(7)
Barbara Crossette
When Worlds Collide	114	(3)
Ronald Steel
First Born, Fast Grown: The Manful Life of Nicholas, 10	117	(6)
Isabel Wilkerson
Massacre at Columbine High School	123	(3)
Nancy Gibbs
Gender in the Classroom	126	(5)
Deborah Tannen
Cop-Out on Class: Why Private Schools Are Today's Draft Deferments	131	(6)
Jonathan Alter
It's a Wonderful Legacy	133	(1)
The Era of Bad Feeling	134	(3)
Two of a Kind	137	(6)
Jim Hoagland
Truly a Nation...	139	(1)
A Little Homer at the Beach	140	(3)
Why I Can't Write Fiction	143	(4)
Lawrence Weschler
On Robert Lowell	147	(4)
Blair Clark
The Miss Dennis School of Writing	151	(5)
Alice Steinbach
Meeting Mahfouz	156	(7)
Milton Viorst
Critic's Notebook	163	(3)
Richard Eder
L' Atalante	166	(4)
Terrence Rafferty
Annie of Corsica	170	(6)
Jeremy Bernstein
Two Deaths---One Then, One Now: On Losing a Father, A Newspaperman	176	(3)
John Darnton
Heavy Lifting	179	(14)
Geoffrey Wolff
Lenin Peak	193	(5)
Christopher Wren
From So Simple a Beginning	198	(6)
Jonathan Weiner
Pioneer 10 Pushes Beyond Goals, Into the Unknown	204	(5)
John Noble Wilford
Get Set to Say Hi to the Neighbors	207	(2)
Left the Light On, But Nobody Came	209	(7)
Malcolm W. Browne
The Invisible Flying Cat	210	(2)
At Least the Monsters Survive	212	(1)
Beauty, as Scientists Behold It	213	(3)
Manual Labor	216	(5)
James Gleick
Maintenance Not Included	218	(3)
At Last, Shout of ``Eureka!'' in Age-Old Math Mystery	221	(4)
Gina Kolata
Scientist Reports First Cloning Ever of Adult Mammal	223	(2)
What If We Succeed?	225	(9)
Walter Sullivan
Deus Conservat Omnia	234	(8)
Harrison E. Salisbury
Introduction to Morgan, American Financier	242	(7)
Jean Strouse
Down Twenty-Three Steps	249	(3)
Robert K. Massie
The Forest Coup	252	(7)
David Remnick
Pictures from the Rubble Patch	259	(5)
Jonathan Sanders
A Corner of Russia	264	(4)
Serge Schmemann
Goodbye to Rafah	268	(4)
Gloria Emerson
Mock Democracy	272	(9)
William Greider
The Big Barbecue	281	(8)
Landon Y. Jones Jr.
The Rope Line	289	(9)
Samuel G. Freedman
Nixonland	298	(8)
Francine Du Plessix Gray
Consultants: The Men Who Came to Dinner	306	(10)
Walter Guzzardi
Class Act	316	(5)
Jeremy Treglown
The New American Heartland	321	(4)
John Herbers
The 1950s	325	(5)
Charles Kaiser
Jazz, Music Beyond Time and Nations	330	(5)
Nat Hentoff
Miracle Kid	335	(16)
Lucinda Franks
Travels of the Rock	351	(18)
John McPhee
Acknowledgments	369	(4)
Author Index	373