August 1981
In This Issue
Explore the August 1981 print edition below. Or to discover more writing from the pages of The Atlantic, browse the full archive.
Articles
The Last of the Pure Baseball Men
Calvin Griffith is a holdout against the forces of change
In Praise of Dispraise
Invective is an art form like any other, but it has gone out of style
The Ultimate Toy
Debugging the computer "Eagle"
Hanoi: The Problems of Peace
Vietnam finds that waging war was simple compared with running an economy
On Chekhov
Vladimir Nabokov, who died in 1977, came late to his American reputation. But long before the publication of Lolita brought him fame—in 1958, eighteen years after his arrival in this country—he had achieved local renown at Wellesley and at Cornell, where during the 1940s and 1950s he lectured on Russian and European literature. This essay on Chekhov, which has never previously been published, is drawn from Nabokov’s lecture notes for his masterly course on the poets and novelists of his native country.
During the War
The Wasp
The Tip-Top Club
Slow Motion
Among the Believers: Pakistan
Correction
Washington: Defense, Taxes, and the Budget
There are still fears that Reagan’s plans will increase inflation instead of controlling it
World Population Growth
Partly Cloudy
Malone's Jefferson Concluded
The Herald
The Last Laugh
The History of Haute Couture
A Summer in the Twenties
Will's Boy
Will's Boy
Saki
The Glitter Dome
Scotland
Joseph Conrad
National Defense
The Atlantic Puzzler
