November 1953
In This Issue
Explore the November 1953 print edition below. Or to discover more writing from the pages of The Atlantic, browse the full archive.
Articles
Indonesia
Reader's Choice
The Best Humor From Punch
Childhood's End
Marshlands and Prometheus Misbound
An Autumn in Italy
Ideas and Places
Dead Man in the Silver Market
Egypt
Summer Camps
Life on Other Planets
What effect climate has on life and the conditions under which life might be supported on other planets was a subject explored recently by a group of scientists including HARLOW SHAPLEY.AS Paine Professor of Astronomy and Director of the Harvard Observatory, Harlow Shapley became internationally known for his famous studies of the Galaxies. The article which follows is part of a book, Climatic Change, by Dr. Shapley and others, to be published in December for the American Academy of Arts and Sciences by Harvard University Press.
The Diaghilev I Knew
IGOR STRAVINSKYwas born on the outskirts of St. Petersburg in 1882. His father was the leading bass singer at the Imperial Opera. At the age of nine the boy was allowed to take piano lessons, but his parents disapproved of a musical career and later sent him to study law at the University of St. Petersburg. Upon his graduation in 1905, he broke away to learn composition from Rimski-Korsakov; and by 1914 he had achieved international fame as a musical innovator with The Firebird, Petrouchka, and The Rites of Spring, which were commissioned by Diaghilev for his Ballets Russes. For nineteen years he was Diaghilev’s favorite composer. This record of their friendship has been translated by Mercedes de Acosta.
For a Continental Defense
No institution in the country has made a greater contribution to our national defense than Massachusetts Institute of Technology, of which JAMES R. KILLIAN, JR., is President. Collaborating with him in the writing of this forthright article is A. G. HILL, Professor of Physics at M.I.T. and Director of the Lincoln Laboratory, which is operated by M.I.T for the three branches of the military service and which is devoted to technical aspects of air defense.
The Atlantic Report on the World Today: Washington
The Girl on the Bus
WILLIAM SANSOM “can make you see, hear, taste, touch, and smell to his order,”wrote Eudora Welty when she had finished reading South with its lustrous descriptions of the Mediterranean. From Mr. Sansom’s new volume, The Passionate North, a collection of short stories drawn from the harsh panorama of Scandinavia and the Western Isles of Scotland, the Atlantic has selected two narratives. The book will be published this month by Harcourt, Brace.
To the Queen
Can We Invest in Turkey?
Chairman of the Board of Inland Steel and for five years its President, CLARENCE B. RANDALL was projected into international affairs when Paul Hoffman invited him to be the Steel Consultant for ECA in its first year. This assignment brought Mr. Randall into close association with the steel masters on the Continent and in Britain; and with this experience he is well qualified to evaluate our investments abroad. The trenchant article which follows was written on his return from Turkey this September. Atlantic readers who enjoyed Mr. Randall’s book, A Creed for Free Enterprise, should watch for its sequel, Freedom’s Faith, which has just been published.
My Husband Was Elected
The author of the article which follows is the wife of a reform Mayor in one of our Middle Western cities and the mother of two children. For three years she has experienced the pride, the practical demands, and the pestering which democracy bestows upon the family of an officeholder; and there have been times when she has asked herself whether the job is really worth it. This is her answer.
Russian Assignment
A graduate of Annapolis, VICE ADMIRAL LESLIE C. STEVEVS, USN (Ret.), served in the Navy for thirty-six years as a specialist in naval aviation and foreign intelligence. In 1917,while still in the Academy,he began his study of Russian history. He learned to read and write the language and when, in 1947, he was sent to Moscow as our naval attaché, he was able as few of our representatives are to meet the Russians on their own terms. During his years of duty in the country,he talked to people in all walks of life, and from his maltitudinous encounters has come his new book, Russian Assignment, which has just appeared under the Atlantic-Little, Brown imprint. It is a big book and a memorable one, and we wish our readers to realize that the episodes selected for the Atlantic comprise approximately one ninth of the total text.
After Dinner
A humorist who has been too often punished for his lighthearted ability to speak, SIR ALAN PATRICK HERBERT is one of the most famous contributors to Punch and was, in a more serious mood, a member of Parliament from Oxford University from 1935 to 1950. Atlantic readers will remember him for his irresistible parody of Shakespeare, Two Gentlemen of Soho, for his delightful novel of the Thames, The Water Gipsies, and for his ballads and She-Shanties, which are quoted by all lovers of light verse.
The Growth of Competition
There is a popular belief that Big Business in America as it has grown bigger has invoked monopoly in place of the competition by which we used to live. Is this in fact the case? The answer is of vital interest at a time when our economy must be at full strength to prevail in the tug of peace. SUMNER H. SLICHTERwho has devoted a great deal of study to the article which follows, is Lamont Professor at Harvard University,an economist widely respected from coast to coast.
Dawning
On Producing Young Conductors
A graduate of Harvard who has been affiliated with the Boston Symphony since 1918, JOHN N. BURK is the author of biographies of Clara Schumann and Beethoven. He has edited the most recent edition of Wagner’s letters, and for close to two decades he has written and edited a handbook which sets a standard in its field, The Program Notes for the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
Jazz Today
Poet and critic, WHITNEY BALLIETT reminds us that with the advent of the tape recorder and the long-playing record, jazz, which is the most evanescent of modern music, becomes a permanent part of our musical library. A native of New York now in his twenty-eighth year, Mr. Balliett joined the editorial staff of the New Yorker shortly after his graduation from Cornell.
They Shall Have Music: Custom or Ready-Made?
Berlioz: Romeo and Juliet, a Dramatic Symphony (Charles Munch Conducting Boston Symphony Orchestra, With Margaret Roggero, Contralto, Leslie Chabay, Tenor, Yikwei Sze, Bass, and Harvard Glee Club and Radcliffe Choral Society; Rca Victor: Two 12" Lps,..
Handel: The Twelve Concerti Grossi (Fritz Lehmann Conducting Members of the Bamberg Symphony; Decca: Four 12" LPS in Album)
Mahler: Symphony No. 1 in D (William Steinberg Conducting Pittsburgh Symphony; Capitol: 12" Lp)
Respighi: The Pines of Rome; The Fountains of Rome (Arturo Toscanini Conducting NBC Symphony; Rca Victor: 12" Lp in 13-Page Picture-Text Allium)
Schumann: Cello Concerto With J. C. Bach: Concerto in C Minor and Bruch: Kol Nidrei (Joseph Schuster, Cello; Franz Waxman Conducting Los Angeles Orchestral Society; Capitol: 12" Lp)
Wagner: The Flying Dutchman (Ferenc Fricsay Conducting Josef Greindl, Josef Metternich, Annalies Kupper, Other Soloists, Berlin-Rias Symphony and Chorus; Decca: Three 12" LPS in Album With Libretto)
The Peripatetic Reviewer
Books: The Editors Like
