Book Reviews
Since its inception, Foreign Affairs has had a fairly long book review section. The section originated after Coolidge asked his colleague at Harvard, William L. Langer, a historian and World War I veteran, to run the section. Langer initially had full control over the section and did the reviews entirely by himself. A month before the reviews were due the office in New York would ship approximately one hundred books to Langer to be reviewed and within approximately two weeks he would return the reviews for the section.
By the late 1930s, the review section had been broken down into several subsections. In the magazine's current incarnation (as of April 2006), a few longer reviews, usually written by well-known figures in the field of foreign policy, begin the section, followed by a subsection titled "Recent Books on International Relations" with shorter half-page-long reviews written by eminent academics. The section's final page shows the top fifteen best selling books on U.S. foreign policy and international affairs according to Barnes and Noble's online book sales.
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Famous quotes containing the words book reviews, book and/or reviews:
“The last publicized center of American writing was Manhattan. Its writers became known as the New York Intellectuals. With important connections to publishing, and universities, with access to the major book reviews, they were able to pose as the vanguard of American culture when they were so obsessed with the two Joes—McCarthy and Stalin—that they were to produce only two artists, Saul Bellow and Philip Roth, who left town.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)
“I think, for the rest of my life, I shall refrain from looking up things. It is the most ravenous time-snatcher I know. You pull one book from the shelf, which carries a hint or a reference that sends you posthaste to another book, and that to successive others. It is incredible, the number of books you hopefully open and disappointedly close, only to take down another with the same result.”
—Carolyn Wells (1862–1942)
“The skilful Nymph reviews her force with care:
Let Spades be trumps! she said, and trumps they were.”
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744)