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The Yale Alumni Magazine is owned and operated by Yale Alumni Publications, Inc., a nonprofit corporation independent of Yale University. The content of the magazine and its website is the responsibility of the editors and does not necessarily reflect the views of Yale or its officers. |
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Hampton Sides ’84 As Japanese forces completed their conquest of the Philippines in April 1942, U.S. commanding general Douglas MacArthur left his fortress headquarters on Corregidor and fled to Australia. “I shall return,” MacArthur said, but to the men left behind, this appeared to be an empty promise. Upon surrendering, the U.S. and allied troops, half-starved after months of siege and often sick with tropical diseases, were forced to undertake what came to be called the “Bataan Death March,” a week- long, 75-mile trek to prison camps. Prisoners who couldn’t keep up were killed, and those who survived suffered an awful fate: slave labor in hellish conditions. Perhaps hardest of all, the soldiers felt abandoned. “No mama, no papa, no Uncle Sam,” they chanted. “No pills, no planes, no artillery pieces … and nobody gives a damn.” But in January 1945 MacArthur did indeed return, and as the U.S. Sixth Army began to take back the Philippines, guerrillas told military leaders about a camp filled with the “ghosts of Bataan,” 500 or so prisoners who were too weak to be shipped off to Japan to continue their enslavement. Officials feared that the men would be killed by their captors, so General Walter Krueger sent Lieutenant Colonel Henry Mucci, commander of a new kind of military unit known as the Rangers, on a perilous mission behind enemy lines to take control of the prison camp and bring the men back. Hampton Sides, through extensive research into written records and interviews with Rangers, prisoners, and their Japanese jailers, has put together a gripping tale of heroism that is a tribute to his mentor, the late John Hersey. Chronicling how the captives managed to survive for three grim years, Sides talks about “gastrosadomasochism,” a “sport” in which the prisoners “would swap recipes for dishes that were ludicrously, obscenely rich” in a perverse attempt to slake hunger; about deathly ill patients in the “zero-zero ward”—the numbers corresponded to the chance of recovery—giving medicine to even sicker buddies; and about an engineer named Homer Hutchinson who crafted a morale-building radio from “a toothpaste tube, an old truck battery, and a crude crystal” that could pick up San Francisco. Alternating with these chapters is an hour-by-hour account of the daring raid that is rich with sweat and suspense. “The minutes dripped by. The men kept as still as mannequins. Their nerves flitted and raced,” writes Sides, as the Rangers took up positions and aimed at the guards. “They were just 30 feet away. We sat in the dark listening to them talk and talk, wondering which of them would be the first to die.” In the silence before battle, readers are nervously holding their breath, wondering if anyone will get out alive.
Robert Scholes ’50 In 1938, Yale English professor Cleanth Brooks and writer Robert Penn Warren published a manifesto called Understanding Poetry. The book ushered in a way of examining literature known as the “New Criticism,” and the ap- proach has influenced generations of teachers and students. But the effect, says Brown University English professor Robert Scholes, has not been positive. “What we still call the New Criticism was bad for poets and poetry and really terrible for students and teachers of poetry,” writes Scholes. “By following Brooks and Warren down the New Critical path of tone and tension, we English teachers succeeded in getting life itself … out of our classrooms and out of the poems we studied as well.” Scholes offers a way to put life back into the study of poetry as well as into literature in general. To do so, the professor calls for a curriculum that emphasizes the “craft of reading” a far more wide-ranging selection of texts than has been typical. The longest essay in this engaging and often provocative book deals with how to become a “crafty reader” of verse, and Scholes urges readers to hone the craft by tackling nontraditional material, including the “monstrous personal chronicles” of Henry Miller and Anais Nin, private-eye novels, the epistles of Paul, and the paintings of Norman Rockwell. “My whole intent . is to connect the ordinary with the extraordinary: the humble text with the exalted text, the sacred with the profane, the common reader with the uncommon writer, and the common writer with the uncommon reader,” he says. A crafty reader can even learn a lot from Harry Potter, says Scholes, offering a counterpoint to Sterling Professor of the Humanities Harold Bloom’s acerbic dismissal of the best-selling series’s worth. Far from lacking “imaginative vision,” author J. K. Rowling has “crafted her world with extreme care, and with an admirable amount of wit and joy,” says Scholes. “For those of us with middling gifts in the way of pure intelligence, serious attention to the craft of reading can take us quite far.”
Steven T. Rosenthal ’68, ’75PHD Since Israel’s founding in 1948, Jews around the world have considered the country to be their real homeland. Nowhere has this been more true than in the United States, where the financial and political support of the American Jewish community has been bedrock solid. But while numerous wars between the Israelis and their Arab neighbors and the recent attempt at the UN’s conference on racism to condemn Israel have tended to unite Jews, this solidarity, particularly in the U.S., is both fragile and illusory, says historian Steven T. Rosenthal. Rosenthal demonstrates how support for the Jewish state, as measured by such things as “checkbook Zionism,” visits to Israel, and uncritical acceptance of Israeli policies, has declined since the early 1980s. “A series of crises, both foreign and domestic, within and outside the Jewish community, pushed American Jews toward a less idealized view of Israel and encouraged their growing sense of independence,” he explains. Among the divisive events cited are the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, the Jonathan Pollard spying affair, the Intifada, and the controversy over who might be considered Jewish. (The breakdown of the peace process during the current Palestinian uprising occurred too late to be included in the book.) Some of this drifting away from Israel is inevitable, Rosenthal points out. “Israel’s and Zionism’s great tasks have been largely achieved,” he notes. But while there is no longer a sense of looming Apocalypse to keep a dispersed population together, this loss of connection may have profound spiritual consequences. If American Jews lose touch with Israel, says Rosenthal, they risk losing their sense of Jewish identity.
Alexandra Robbins ’98 and Abby Wilner Pity the poor twentysomethings. After years of academic achievement, they graduate and enter a world that plays by vastly different rules. As a result, many young adults in their 20s experience a collective malaise that the authors, both members of that age group, have called the “quarterlife crisis”: a period of intense questioning and ceaseless doubts. “At its heart, the quarterlife crisis is an identity crisis,” say Robbins and Wilner, who present interviews with more than 100 members of their own generation. Older adults may have scant patience with young men and women who need to be told that “it often helps to be willing to compromise at least a little bit” and who fear a pattern dubbed “the two-month itch.” Still, the perceived disconnect between college and life afterwards can be jarring, and a plethora of opportunities can be as traumatic as too few, say the authors. By demonstrating the pervasiveness of this age-related ennui and offering a gentle “this too shall pass” nudge, the authors perform a useful service to beleaguered twentysomethings and their parents. The book can also be useful to men in the throes of a midlife crisis. “You can better understand the mood swings of your brand-new girlfriend,” note Robbins and Wilner.
Brief Reviews T. Berry Brazelton and Joshua D. Sparrow '85MD Perseus/Merloyd Lawrence, $27
F.J. Chu '77 “Have the remarkable innovations of technology and the seductions of material abundance altered what we think about money?” asks financial advisor and philosopher Chu. Or is the market still just a “great game?”
Laura Pappano '84 The convenience of having everything available online has not made people happier, says the author, who examines why technology has contributed to loneliness and offers ways to disconnect—and reconnect.
Edward Samuels '71 In an entertaining and enlightening volume, law professor Samuels traces the history of copyright from its origins in this country in the 18th century during the printingpress era to its recent adaptations to cover challenges posed by computer and digital technologies.
Paul Weiss, Sterling Professor Emeritus of Philosophy In this investigation of the metaphysics of being, philosopher Weiss explores how the study of “emphatics” such as changes in pitch in speech and question marks in writing offer “a better understanding of what is real.”
Jon Wertheim '93 Dysfunctional dads hold center court as sportswriter Wertheim takes readers on a tell-all exploration of the 2000 season that examines how the familiar names in women’s tennis attempt to deal with a new superstar.
More Books by Yale Authors Elizabeth Alexander, Associate Professor (Adjunct) of African American Studies Jack M. Balkin, Knight Professor of Constitutional Law, Editor Mark J. Blechner 1977PhD Paula Marantz Cohen 1975 Elisha Cooper 1993, Author and Illustrator Nancy F. Cott, Sterling Professor of History Francis de Tarr 1949, 1958PhD Drew Denbaum 1971 and Sue Benton Joanne B. Freeman, Assistant Professor of History Seth Garfield 1988, 1996PhD Abner S. Greene 1982 Jonathan Hay 1989PhD Dwight B. Heath 1959PhD Sarah Heidt 1991, 1998PhD, and C. P. Ragland, Editors Jody Helpren 1982, 1989MD, 1994PhD Jeremy B.C. Jackson 1971PhD, Scott Lidgard, and Frank K. McKinney, Editors Elmer W. Johnson 1954 and Donald L. Miller Brian C. Kalt 1997JD Peter Kivy 1960MA Adam J. Kosto 1989 Robert L. Leahy 1967, 1974PhD Buzz Mauro 1984 and Deb Gottesman Thomas Morawetz 1968LLB, 1969PhD Eric L. Muller 1987JD Yale Daily News Editors Marianne Novy 1973PhD, Editor Howard T. Odum 1951PhD and Elisabeth C. Odum Clifford A. Pickover 1982PhD Horace Porter 1981PhD Adam Rome 1980 M. E. Sarotte 1998PhD Alex Shakar 1991 David J. Strohmaier 1995MAR Lisa Tiersten 1991PhD Rachel Toor 1984 Dick Wimmer 1959MA Lee Adams Young 1949
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