Word: frontieres
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Swamp Angel, by Anne Isaacs; illustrated by Paul O. Zelinsky (Dutton; $14.99), presents a rousing rarity: a brand-new backwoods legend, written mostly for girls, that has the feel of real frontier storytelling. Angelica Longrider, born in Tennessee in 1815 and known far and wide as Swamp Angel, was "scarcely taller than her mother" at birth, and -- though her father gave her a shiny new ax to play with in her cradle -- "was a full two years old before she built her first log cabin." Her epic mud wrestle with the giant bear Thundering Tarnation has the rowdy, mile-wide...
...always this way. Our country was founded and flourished on a strong work ethic, when men and women took pride in being self-sufficient, in working hard and being independent. Many historians, most notably Frederick Jackson Turner, suggest that the value of work and self-sufficiency on the frontier led to the development of our democratic government. Along with the dignity of work is the humiliation of not working, of being dependent on others. Other events, such as the Great Depression, branded the pain and humiliation of poverty onto the minds of entire generations...
...cause of death in the U.S. -- sounds incredible. Yet it is only one of the promising developments being pursued in the hot new field of biological psychiatry. What was once the purview of priests and analysts, who try to probe the mind by listening and observing, is now a frontier for neuroscientists, who use blood tests, brain scans and spinal taps. Psychiatrists at some research centers are already using these tools to distinguish among types of depression and schizophrenia, and predict with some degree of certainty the best course of treatment for their patients...
...conform to his notion of futuristic collegiality and his distaste for warfare. He had written for such popular shows as Dragnet and Have Gun Will Travel, and candidly envisioned the original Star Trek series as a "Wagon Train to the stars." In his quintessentially '60s view, the final frontier may have been full of hostile Klingons and dangerous Romulans, but they were generally susceptible to a pep talk -- only occasionally augmented by a punch in the nose -- from Captain Kirk. "Everyone always wants me to do space battles," Roddenberry remarked in 1989. "Well, screw them. That's not what Star...
...Star Trek's popularity less to its science than to its dramatic and mythic qualities. Richard Slotkin, professor of English at Wesleyan University, says the show echoes the pioneer stories that dominate American history and literature. "What's so appealing about Star Trek is that it takes the old frontier myth and crosses it with a platoon movie," Slotkin says. "Instead of the whites against the Indians, you have a multiethnic crew against the Romulans and Klingons...