March 1956
In This Issue
Explore the March 1956 print edition below. Or to discover more writing from the pages of The Atlantic, browse the full archive.
Articles
London
Science and Industry
Correction
How Free Men Work Together
Ship of Fools
This is the first of two episodes to be drawn from KATHERINE ANNE PORTER’S forthcoming novel, No Safe Harbor, which will appear under the Atlantic-Little, Brown imprint. No Safe Harbor, Miss Porter writes us, “began as a diary kept on hoard ship on my first trip to Europe in 1931. Little by little it began to turn itself into a story, by that mysterious process which I cannot explain, but which I recognize when it begins, and I no along with it out of a kind of curiosity, as if my mind which knows the facts is watching to see what my story-telling mind will finally make of them.” Miss Porter is regarded as one of the masters of the short story, and her collections Flowering judas and Pale Horse, Pale Rider have become classics in our time.
Catholic Temper in Poland
English novelist and ardent Roman Catholic‚ GRAHAM GREENE returned from an extended visit in Poland last autumn with these impressions of how a patriotic and intensely religious people reacts to its governors from Russia. Mr. Greene is widely known to Americans for his versatile writing: his psychological thrillers (This Gun for Hire and The Third Man); his serious novels on deeply religious themes (Brighton Rock, The Heart of the Matter, and Fhe End of the Affair); and his first play, The Living Room, which aroused a good deal of controversy when it was produced in New York in 1954. Mr. Greene’s new novel‚ The Quiet American, is being published by Viking this month.
The Atlantic Report on the World Today: Washington
Hunter-Killers in the Atlantic: October-December, 1943
In the late autumn of 1943, thanks to high-frequency electronic research and unlimited audacity, the Allied air-sea forces at last began to thwart the U-boat offensive. This is the heroic story which REAR ADMIRAL SAMUEL ELIOT MORISON, USNR (Ret.) tells in his new booh. The Atlantic Battle Won, from which these episodes have been drawn. This is the tenth volume in his magnificent history of our Navy in the Second World War.
Why Do We Teach Poetry?
Poet and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1932 and 1953 and of the National Book Award and the Bollingen Prize in 1953, public servant who as Librarian of Congress also served in the Office of War Information and later was Assistant Secretary of State, ARCHIBALD MACLEISH left Washington in 1949 to become Boylston Professor of English and Rhetoric at Harvard. Here in his lectures before packed audiences he strives to remove the obstacles between poet and reader, and in his seminars on writing he seeks to instill the veneration for poetry as an art which shines through these pages.
After Four Years
Uprooting the Indians
RUTH MULVEY HARMER worked as a reporter for the Hartford Courant for two years before going on to the Washington Times-Herald, for which she covered the District government. In 1947, while on a two weeks vacation in Mexico, she started an English language newspaper and ended by staving there for four years, editing a magazine, writing articles foi various American and Canadian publications, and doing a book on Mexican food. After marrying the editor of the rival newspaper, she went with him to California, where she has continued her writing and has been teaching at the University of Southern California and U.C.L.A.
How Mr. Hogan Robbed a Bank
A native son who was born in Salinas, California, in 1902, JOHN STEINBECK devoted himself to marine biology during his student years at Stanford Unirersity, an interest vividly reflected in his stories (d)oiit Cannery Row. His first three books were failures and he had tried his hand at reporting ami as hod carrier, chemist, surveyor, and fruit picker before he came into the clear as a novelist. In the comedy which follows he projects a holdup which even the FBI might be slow in solving.
A Little Learning Is a Dangerous Thing
Mother of three children of whom the “John" of this story is the oldest, ANNA MARY WELLS is teaching English at Douglass College of Rutgers University. She is the author of four murder mysteries and of stories and articles in a number of magazines. In 1947, the Atlanlic published “ The Truly feminine Mother,”and “nothing I’ve ever written,“ the author tells us, “drew a more gratifying response.”
Management in Search of Men
When DAVID A. SHEPARD graduated from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1927 and entered the employ of Standard Oil of New Jersey, the oil industry was filled with engineers and those who had earned their seniority in the field without benefit of college. But over the years a change has taken place; men with a liberal arts education have proved their value in oil as in other American industries, and today speaking as a Director of Jersey Standard, Mr. Shepard makes this forthright analysis of his company’s quest for executives.
John Gunther's Africa
Author, editor, and critic, RICHARD E. DANIELSON is a veteran of both world wars. In 1917 and 1918 he served as an Intelligence Officer in the AEF. In 1942, as a Staff Officer in G2, he was assigned to the section covering the campaign in North Africa, and after the successful termination of that operation he teas sent to Dakar as our Military Observer in French West Africa. It is with this experience that he seeks to evaluate John Gunther’s most ambitious survey, Inside Africa. Since 1910, Mr. Danielson has been President of The Atlantic Monthly Company.
Messenger
The Peripatetic Reviewer
Books: The Editors Like
Reader's Choice
Accent on Living
The Humans
Vagabond Vertebra
Foyer Trap
The Best of Beethoven
