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Article: Lord of the gadflies; the Nation is pushy and obnoxious. That's why it's so great. (periodical)
- Article from:
- The Washington Monthly
- Article date:
- May 1, 1991
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1991 Washington Monthly Company. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Lord of the Gadflies
In some ways, The Nation, 1865-1990 (*) is a typical venerable old magazine collection. Its big literary guns of days gone by--Henry James, Mark Twain, D. H. Lawrence, H. L. Mencken--could all be expected to appear in a best of The Atlantic. In fact, they do (see Louise Desaulniers's 119 Years of The Atlantic). The two omnibuses also share a number of America's greatest poets.
So what exactly distinguishes the fiery, self-styled troublemaking weekly from America's oldest and most respectable Boston Brahmin journal? It's not the subject matter; both are dedicated in roughly equal parts to reporting, opinion, and cultural criticism. ...