Used price: $42.65
Buy one from zShops for: $40.00
Used price: $5.95
Used price: $35.00
This book is ground-breaking ethnography that is put together by the people it is about. It is presented for the purpose of opening dialogue with those in far away places whose political priorities have consequences for Inuit peoples. It is a story of a region that spans three continents, and which is of growing importance to those of us who live in the south. No one interested in economic development of natural resources, whatever the point of view, can afford to ignore this book.
Used price: $32.50
Hindus gives some biographical info about Babbitt in "Masters of Modern French Criticism," also the title of Babbitt's critique of nineteenth-century French literary critics. Although Babbitt wrote this book in 1912, his method is just as applicable today, as Hindus points out, because of its attempt to restore the word "criticism" to its original meaning of judging literary works.
A scholar of the Sanskrit language, Babbitt had a lifelong interest in Buddhism. His translation of Buddha's Dhammapada was published posthumously. In Buddhism one can see principles Babbitt cherished: the inner check, the need for self-restraint and self conquest, the tending of one's own garden, the limiting of politics to its proper sphere, and the high value placed on modesty and humility.
Hindus, too, repeatedly demonstrates fine judgment that is grounded in humility. His recognition that Babbitt has a feeling for the "main tendency" of his time is a way of giving the critic the benefit of the doubt. That is, although one might put Babbitt and Rousseau on opposite sides of the bookshelf, each gets his due for providing what each thought his age demanded. Why choose between them when each had something to offer? As Hindus puts it, we Americans are a "both-and" culture rather than "either or."
In addition to being a charitable literary critic, and an acute reader of Babbitt, Hindus is a keen observer of democracy who reads the Federalist Papers every year. The inner check praised by Babbitt has its analogue in the American institutions analyzed in the Federalist Papers, such as the separation of powers among the three branches of government.
I found new respect for President Bush after reading the essay "Autobiographies of Van Buren, Reagan, and Bush" and still find it after repeated readings. Rivals depicted Bush as a preppie weakling, summing up their disgust by the childish repetition of his name, George Herbert Walker Bush. For his part, Hindus finds it rather charming to have had a president named after the seventeenth-century poet, George Herbert, himself one of history's most decent men. Hindus calls Bush an ordinary man of extraordinary sensitivities; Reagan he considers equally decent and every bit as clever as his detractors, though less intellectually pretentious. Both knew not to take themselves too seriously. Equally remarkable is the thread that Hindus traces from of an episode in Van Buren's autobiography, through Ezra Pound's depiction of it in the Cantos, to its modern analogue in the Bush autobiography. All three presidents -- Van Buren, Bush, Reagan -- are praised for the virtues of humility and restraint.
Surely this is criticism of the highest order: readable, generous, and measured, of the sort I would like to accomplish myself someday. I will miss the contributions of Milton Hindus, who died a few years ago without fanfare. I hope that others will discover his work.
List price: $13.99 (that's 20% off!)
Used price: $71.61
Used price: $28.00
Buy one from zShops for: $38.00
Used price: $4.50
Nicolson helped me get clear on what Milton might have meant in each major scene, book by book.