Thomas Sieger Derr

This is not a book review, it’s a complaint.I have been reading—and, I confess, enormously enjoying—David Halberstam’s The Fifties (Villard), yet another of his blockbuster best-sellers. It’s great nostalgia, wonderfully evocative, and above all, about my generation. Like . . . . Continue Reading »

The Covenant of the Wild: Why Animals Choose Domestication by steven budiansky morrow, 190 pages, $18 Having yet again picked up the garbage the raccoons repeatedly spill in my backyard. I was well prepared for Steven Budiansky’s The Covenant of the Wild. These wily creatures, who by all accounts . . . . Continue Reading »

The power of the movement for animal rights—a movement that until recently was located for most people on the edge of the ridiculous—can no longer be denied. Abetted by both the “rights revolution” and the increasingly powerful environmental cause, the old collection of vegetarians . . . . Continue Reading »

In American political rhetoric–stump speeches, newspaper editorials, party propaganda–the terms “left wing” and “right wing” are used as epithets. They are terms of opprobrium. We employ them on our opponents, hoping to persuade voters to turn away from such dangerous ideologues. When . . . . Continue Reading »