Word: books
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...democracy synonymous with decadence? France's indefatigable political pundit, Raymond Aron, 74, for one, answers a thunderous "No!" His 28th book, In Defense of Decadent Europe (Regnery/Gateway; $14.95), published in the U.S. in June, makes a formidable case for the democratic pluralism he has upheld for 30 years, often against periodic leftist tides in Western Europe. Perhaps best known for his ironic aphorism, "Marxism is the opium of the intellectuals," Aron has produced a challenging critique of the messianic illusions about a Communist Utopia...
Defense was originally written, as Aron concedes, to influence the 1978 French parliamentary election campaign, when there were fears that Eurocommunism might come to power as a major bloc within the Western alliance. Nevertheless, the English-language version has a lingering and vivid resonance. For example, the book poses a still pertinent question on the eve of the SALT II debate in the Senate: "Faced with an increasingly powerful and militant Soviet Union, do the Americans still have the same resolution they did 30 years...
...interview with TIME, Aron last week reflected on some of the changes in the world and in his views since publication of the first French edition of his book. "The defeat of the left in the 1978 elections removed many of the dangers we feared in France," he said. "But the crisis provoked by oil may be worse than I described in the book. I am also more pessimistic about the fact that the military superiority of the Soviet Union is less and less balanced by the force and the will of the U.S. At the same time, I feel...
...Peter Derow. He was described as shocked, but associates said that he may have missed subtle signals of Graham's displeasure. Under Kosner's predecessor, Osborn Elliott, now dean of Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism, Newsweek was briefly known on Madison Avenue as a "hot book" because of improved editorial vitality and attendant advertising and circulation gains. (Newsweek's current U.S. circulation is 2.9 million, vs. TIME's 4.25 million.) Yet newsstand sales have slumped lately, and Graham is said to have been concerned that Kosner was making Newsweek too frivolous with his fondness...
...RECENT edition of the New York Times Book Review, a critic arguing for the persistence of decadence in modern society chose David Bowie as one of his prime examples. That seems both gratuitous and unfair, as though Bowie's sheen of bisexuality and world-weariness alone could spell the decay of an entire civilization. And whatever objections you may have to Bowie's recent music, no one could call it worn-out or impotent...