Word: recent
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...what it was a half-century ago. Then the market and the country were in an ebullient mood; optimism was king. The stock market law of gravity held that whatever goes up must go up again. During one day, RCA-the IBM of its era-soared 40 points. In recent years, however, the stock market has had the blahs, reflecting national uncertainty about the future. This summer the Dow Jones industrial average had already declined 50% from its peak of 1051 in 1973, when adjusted for inflation. Concludes Economist John Kenneth Galbraith, author of The Great Crash, a study...
Washington is troubled by the new atmosphere in the area. In recent months there have been fears that the Caribbean has become an arena for superpower rivalry, with Havana, as usual, acting as Moscow's surrogate. Says a U.S. official: "There is a great concern that America and its ideological values are in retreat. If the Cubans were to lure the little island countries of the eastern Caribbean into their sphere of influence, it would send shock waves throughout Central America all the way to Cape Horn...
...contraception. Only the openness to possible parenthood, he has written, puts a sexual relationship on a "genuinely personal level." To exclude the possibility of children, he argued, limits the relationship to the pursuit of sensual pleasure. John Paul unequivocally endorsed Humanae Vitae during his U.S. trip. Opinion polls in recent years have repeatedly shown that a vast number of American Catholic couples simply do not regard birth control as sinful. Whether the Pope's stand will affect them or the practice of confession of it depends on what steps are taken by U.S. bishops and priests...
...irony, however, is that for the leading literary figure in Japan, Abe's writing has a remarkably Western flavor. Except for place names and a few distinctly oriental metaphors ("his thoughts shrank like a piece of fat meat plunged into boiling water"), Secret Rendezvous. Abe's sixth and most recent book could pass, like his others, for a Western novel...
Shaplen takes more dangerous risks when he abandons armchair criticisms and turns to present-day issues. He doesn't hesitate to discuss China's recent incursions into Vietnam, the refugee problem, or the Cambodian-Vietnamese situation. Lucid, insightful and delightfully straightforward, the author recounts the past and predicts the future. Shaplen is no dummy; when he doesn't know what will happen, he says so. On China, he writes, "No matter how many crystal balls one uses, it is patently impossible to foresee the future evolution of the Chinese Communist Party." Where a lesser writer would have struggled to find...