As much as I enjoyed George Scialabba’s essays on politics in this volume, the most powerful essay concerns Scialabba’s depression. Depression is a Taboo in our culture. People don’t talk about it much or admit they’re suffering from it. Scialabba writes about dealing with his depression over the years in detail. I also enjoyed Scialabba’s essays on George Orwell, Adam Smith, Gore Vidal, and Edmund Wilson. After reading Scialabba’s essays, I wanted to drop everything and read some Orwell, Smith, Vidal, and Wilson! Scialabba’s fine essays deserve a wider audience. GRADE: A
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Forward by Jackson Lears

I. THEORIES
Afterthoughts of a Nader Voter
Starting Over (Robert Dahl/Ernest Callenbach)
Do the Right Thing (Micharel Sandel)
Only Fair (Stanley Fish)
Notice Thy Neighbor (Peter Singer)
Camping (G. A. Cohen)
Illfare (Tony Judt)
Immortal Bees (Roger Scruton)
Minimal Democracy (Charles Lindblom)
Outgrowing All That (Steven Nathanson)
Zippie World (Thomas Friedman)
Reasons and Passions (Johnathan Haidt)
Copywrongs (Lawrence Lessig/Siva Vaidhyanathan)
In Literacy We Trust (E.D. Hirsch)
Republic or Empire? (Andrew Bacevich et al)

II. THINKERS
The Workingman’s Friend (Adam Smith)
What Would Orwell Say? (George Orwell)
Socialist Without a Party, Christian Without a Church (Ignazio Silone)
The Common Fate (Victor Serge)
The Enemy of the State (I. F. Stone)
Just a Journalist (Edmund Wilson)
The Impresario (Irving Kristol)
The Zealot (Hilton Kramer)
The Fastidious Citizen (Gore Vidal)
Vanity and Spleen (Christopher Hitchens)
Human Scale (Christopher Lasch)

III. RANT
Plutocratic Vistas

IV. FIRST PERSON
Message from Room 101
Progress and Prejudice