October 1979
In This Issue
Explore the October 1979 print edition below. Or to discover more writing from the pages of The Atlantic, browse the full archive.
Articles
The Mass Transit Panacea and Other Fallacies About Energy
If most people want to drive cars, how will subways save fuel? Did OPEC decide which states should have gasoline shortages—or is it possible that OPEC is not the villain? How does it happen that the price of gasoline (in uninflated dollars) has dropped continuously since 1940? An economist raises these and other iconoclastic questions about the "energy crisis."
A Writing Woman
At what point does autobiography graduate into memory shaped by art? How does a writer know when to stop telling it as it is or was and make of truth a superior fiction? Readers and writers alike perennially ponder such questions.
For W. H. Auden
The Marketing of the Colleges
As enrollments dwindle and competition for tuition-paying students intensifies, more and more colleges and universities are resorting to hard-sell strategies which in some cases impinge upon the traditional standards and canons of higher education
On the Wine-Colored Earth of Provence
Jailbird
Who Gets Ahead?
The Passion Artist
The Right Stuff
Secret Rendezvous
The Mangan Inheritance
Endless Love
The Ghost Writer
Wonder Aces of the Air
The Death of Jim Loney
The Tranquilizing of America
So Sweet to Labor
The Letters of Virginia Woolf, Vol. V: 1932-1935
The Arun
A Noble Treason
Modern Art
Passion Play
The Atlantic Puzzler
Michigan's PBB Disaster: An Update
Six years ago, Michigan’s entire population of 9 million discovered it had been endangered by chemical contamination of livestock feed sold to farmers all over the state. The full dimensions of this agricultural disaster are now becoming evident, and at least 40 million people may be affected.
The Wary Traveler
Cuba: The Revolutionary Life
Twenty years after the Castro revolution, Cuba is a country of the young (65 percent of the population under 25), of hard work and meager material rewards. Conditions for the many have surely improved, and Fidel Castro’s charisma still holds strong sway. “He delivers had news— and everybody claps.”
The Man Who Loved Levittown
Private Lives, Public Print
Muscle-Bound Superpower: The State of America's Defense
Some $1 22 billion—$600 for each American—goes into the defense budget this year and the expenditures will grow larger in years to come. Yet critics on both sides—those who would spend more and those who would spend less—share a nervous concern that the nation’s military security is inadequate, and some experts fear that the United States has become shackled to high technology that may fail when put to the ultimate test. A crucial debate is under way, not only about how much to spend but about how better to spend it.
October Picnic Long Ago
Dr. Cahn's Visit
Self-Service
The Urban Jungle
