New & Noteworthy
Atlantic, The, March, 2003 by Benjamin Schwarz
Readers of this section will have noticed that we subscribe to the poet Samuel Rogers's maxim: Every time a new book is published, read an old one. We regularly review and run essays on previously published works—some from the recent past, some centuries old. Our aim is to discuss, and to help acquaint our readers with, ideas and literature (by which we mean history, biography, and social, cultural, and literary criticism as well as fiction, drama, and poetry)—not simply to report what's au courant .
The most recent history of, say, the high Middle Ages may be widely reviewed and may bedeck the display tables of all the bookstores, but should the reader turn to it rather than to, for instance, R. W. Southern's captivating The Making of the Middle Ages , published in 1953? Books are a business as well as an art. Every season will see new nonfiction ...