December 1983

In This Issue
Explore the December 1983 print edition below. Or to discover more writing from the pages of The Atlantic, browse the full archive.
Articles
Old Ally, New Competitor
Now, when South Korea's economic success is costing the jobs of Americans, South Koreans wonder if we would fight for them again
Finland: Complicated Coexistence
“Finlandization” has become an epithet ,but the Finns have remained remarkably free while reaching accommodation with the Russians
Atonal Clarity
Journey to Other Sites
Making the List
How some books get on the best-seller list—and how some don’t
Not Just a Gigolo
Kleinzeit
The Courting of Marcus Dupree
The Enthusiast
One Fairy Story Too Many
Racing Alone
The File
The Aeneid
Joseph Conrad: A Chronicle
Nomads of Niger
The Atlantic Puzzler
South Korea: Old Ally, New Competitor
Now ,when South Korea’s economic success is costing the jobs of Americans, South Koreans wonder if we would fight for them again
The Decline of Grammar
Every one has noticed the way in which the Times chooses to spell the word “diocese;” it always spells it diocess, deriving it, I suppose, from Zeus and census. The Journal des Débats might just as well write “diocess” instead of “diocese,” but imagine the Journal des Débats doing so! Imagine an educated Frenchman indulging himself in an orthographical antic of this sort, in face of the grave respect with which the Academy and its dictionary invest the French language! Some people will say these are little things; they are not; they are of bad example. They tend to spread the baneful notion that there is no such thing as a high, correct standard in intellectual matters; that every one may as well take his own way; they are at variance with the severe discipline necessary for all real culture; they confirm us in habits of wilfulness and eccentricity, which hurt our minds, and damage our credit with serious people.—Matthew Arnold in “The Literary Influence of Academies,” 1865
The Blinding Light of the Mind
Accommodations
Why the Networks Will Survive Cable
The obituaries are premature
Biology and Mental Illness
Researchers are coming closer to understanding the mechanisms of depression, manic depression, and schizophrenia
Lat. 90°n, Long. 0°
About Boston
It Turns Out
Uneasy Rests Head Under Santa Hat
