Essays

Interview with Nathan Glazer

– John Kaag, "Interview with Nathan Glazer," Chronicle of Higher Education,  August 13, 2017.
Nathan Glazer interviewed by John Kaag in the Chronicle of Higher Education. Student protests, free-speech controversies, and debates over diversity in academe are nothing new to Nathan Glazer. A professor at the University of California at Berkeley and then… More

Underachieving in America: Researchers document international gaps, a journalist seeks the cause

– Glazer, Nathan. "Underachieving in America: Researchers document international gaps, a journalist seeks the cause." Review of Endangering Prosperity: A Global View of the American School by Eric A. Hanushek, Paul E. Peterson, and Ludger Woessmann, Education Next, Spring 2014.
Excerpt: Endangering Prosperity, with three distinguished authors and an eminent introducer, is devoted to one major point: the United States is truly falling behind not only the East Asian countries that for some time have scored best in international… More

The San Diego Story

– Glazer, Nathan. "The San Diego Story." Review of Tilting at Windmills: School Reform, San Diego, and America’s Race to Renew Public Education by Richard Lee Colvin, Education Next, Winter 2014.
Excerpt: Reading this account of Alan Bersin’s successful, by the test scores, but highly contentious time as school superintendent in San Diego, 1998–2005, I could not help but think back to an account of another successful superintendency, that of Pat… More

Cultural Exchange

– Glazer, Nathan. "Cultural Exchange." Review of The Immigrant Advantage: What We Can Learn from Newcomers to America about Health, Happiness, and Hope by Claudia Kolker, Education Next, Fall 2013.
Excerpt: “The Immigration Spring” reads the title of the lead editorial in the New York Times today as I write this review of The Immigrant Advantage. The Times is welcoming a rare case of cooperation between Republicans and Democrats in addressing the… More

To YouTube and Beyond

– Glazer, Nathan. "To YouTube and Beyond." Review of The One World School House by Salman Khan, Education Next, Summer 2013.
Excerpt: We are getting used to explosive growth in the world of the Internet (note Facebook), but Salman Khan’s creation, in a few short years, of Khan Academy, with its potentially enormous impact on the slow-moving world of K–12 education, is still… More

Action Civics

– Glazer, Nathan. "Action Civics." Review of No Citizen Left Behind by Meira Levinson, Education Next, Spring 2013.
Excerpt: Meira Levinson is not your run-of-the-mill or even your teach-for-democracy middle-school teacher. She taught in middle schools with minority and low-income children in Atlanta and Boston for eight years (she notes in passing that she was tenured in… More

Belmont and Fishtown Part Ways

– Glazer, Nathan. "Belmont and Fishtown Part Ways." Review of Coming Apart by Charles Murray, Education Next, Fall 2012.
Excerpt: On the publication of Charles Murray’s Coming Apart, New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote, “I’ll be shocked if there’s another book as important this year…,” but after an initial flurry of reviews and critiques, no further… More

Grading the President: With Race to the Top, Obama earns a B+ in ed reform

– Glazer, Nathan. "Grading the President: With Race to the Top, Obama earns a B+ in ed reform." Review of President Obama and Education Reform: The Personal and the Political by Robert Maranto and Michael Q. McShane, Education Next, Fall 2012.
Excerpt: This book, and this review, will be published while the presidential campaign is in full swing, and whether there will be anything more to be said about President Obama’s efforts at education reform, still fragmentary now, depends on the outcome of… More

My Life in Sociology

– Glazer, Nathan. "My Life in Sociology." Annual Review of Sociology 38, 2012.
Excerpt: Following on an article in Bennett Berger (1990),Authors of Their Own Lives, titled “From Socialism to Sociology,” in which I and other sociologists describe how we came to sociology, I continue with my academic and public career as a… More

Moynihan Redux

– Glazer, Nathan. "Moynihan Redux." Review of Shortchanging Student Achievement: The Educational, Economic, and Social Costs of Family Fragmentation by Mitch Pearlstein, Education Next, Summer 2012.
Excerpt: This book comes to us with a remarkable range of recommenders: Glenn Loury, Abigail and Stephan Thernstrom, Eric Hanushek, Ron Haskins, Heather MacDonald, David Blankenhorn, Chester Finn, and others. It is published as part of a series edited by… More

Great Teachers in the Classroom?

– Glazer, Nathan. "Great Teachers in the Classroom?" Review of Class Warfare: Inside the Fight to Fix America's Schools by Steven Brill, Education Next, Spring 2012.
Excerpt: Steven Brill’s Class Warfare must be the most prominently reviewed book on education in decades: a lengthy front-page review by Sara Mosle in the New York Times Book Review, a lead review by Joel Klein in the Wall Street Journal, a critical… More

Green Dot Takeover

– Glazer, Nathan. "Green Dot Takeover." Review of Stray Dogs, Saints, and Saviors: Fighting for the Soul of America's Toughest High School by Alexander Russo, Education Next, 2012.
Excerpt: Neither “stray dogs” nor “saints” play any role in Alexander Russo’s account of how Green Dot, a nonprofit organization that creates new charter high schools, managed to take over Locke High School in the Watts area of Los Angeles, and what… More

Cautionary Tale

– Glazer, Nathan. "Cautionary Tale." Review of Schoolhouse of Cards by Eugene Hickok and Collision Course by Paul Manna, Education Next, Fall 2011.
Excerpt: Whatever Possessed the President? was the unlikely title of Robert C. Wood’s memoir of urban policy during the 1960s. The same thought springs to mind in reading these two books on the shaping and progress of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB)… More

Whatever Happened to Integration?

– Glazer, Nathan. "Whatever Happened to Integration?" Review of Five Miles Away, A World Apart by James E. Ryan, Education Next, Summer 2011.
Excerpt: The two schools referred to in the title of this book are Thomas Jefferson (“Tee-Jay”) High School in Richmond, Virginia, and Freeman High School, in suburban Henrico County. They show the contrasts we would expect between a high school in an… More

E Pluribus Plures

– Glazer, Nathan. "E Pluribus Plures." Review of Patriotic Pluralism by Jeffrey E. Mirel, Education Next, Winter 2011.
Excerpt: Americanization, argues education historian Jeffrey Mirel in Patriotic Pluralism, both the process and the term, has been widely misunderstood and too narrowly interpreted in the literature and scholarship on the assimilation of the American… More

Speech Acts

– Glazer, Nathan. "Speech Acts." Review of Jewish Identity and Civil Rights in America by Kenneth L. Marcus, The New Republic, December 20, 2010.
Excerpt: Kenneth Marcus has written what are in effect two books, one of them distinctly odd. The first book is the story of Marcus’s efforts over a number of years to have Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 reinterpreted to cover the harassment and… More

Lessons from a Reformer

– Glazer, Nathan. "Lessons from a Reformer." Review of As Good As It Gets by Larry Cuban, Education Next, Fall 2010.
Excerpt: Larry Cuban is a prolific and insightful chronicler and analyst of our efforts at urban school reform and improvement over the last few decades. In As Good As It Gets he adds the case of a successful school superintendency, that of Pat Forgione in… More

Notes on the State of Black America

– Glazer, Nathan. "Notes on the State of Black America." The American Interest, July 1, 2010.
Excerpt: The election of Barack Obama to the presidency in November 2008 marked a paradox in the long history of race in America that has not been much noticed: The installation of the first black President in American history—black, that is, as Americans… More

Equal Knowledge

– Glazer, Nathan. "Equal Knowledge." Review of The Making of Americans by E.D. Hirsch Jr., Education Next, Summer 2010.
Excerpt: E. D. Hirsch has contributed what is to me the most persuasive idea of the past half century on how to improve the performance of American education. It is a simple idea, but has large implications. These were first spelled out in Cultural Literacy:… More

Tale of Two Cities

– Glazer, Nathan. "Tale of Two Cities." Review of Hope and Despair in the American City by Gerald Grant, Education Next, Spring 2010.
Excerpt: Syracuse, New York, does not appear in the title of this book, as Raleigh, North Carolina, does, but its experience is the reason for it. Author Gerald Grant was born in Syracuse and educated through high school there. He lived for years in… More

Examining a Massacre

– Glazer, Nathan. "Examining a Massacre." Review of Columbine by David Cullen, Education Next, Winter 2010.
Excerpt: This book is clearly the last word on Columbine. The author has reported on the Columbine high-school massacre in various magazines and newspapers since 1999; he has interviewed, it appears, everyone interviewable; he has studied all the many… More

Outliers’, by Malcolm Gladwell Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "Outliers', by Malcolm Gladwell Reviewed." Review of Outliers' by Malcolm Gladwell, Education Next, 2009.
Excerpt: Malcolm Gladwell, a writer for The New Yorker, has become wildly successful mining the findings of social scientists to support ideas or hypotheses that it turns out have been of interest to great numbers of readers. The hypotheses may not be very… More

The Interested Man

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Interested Man." The New Republic, October 2, 2009.
Excerpt: When Irving Kristol joined the new magazine Commentary, he distinguished himself from the other editors–Clement Greenberg, part-time then, Robert Warshow, and me. First, he had an interest in politics, real politics, electoral politics, and not… More

Purposeful Youth

– Glazer, Nathan. "Purposeful Youth." Education Next, 2009.
Excerpt: William Damon, a distinguished psychologist and the director of the Stanford Center on Adolescence, has long been interested, along with Howard Gardner and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, in the study of those who succeed, who do “good work” (the title… More

The Best Addresses

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Best Addresses." Review of Who's Your City? How the Creative Economy is Making Where You Live the Most Important Decision of Your Life by Richard Florida, The New Republic, December 3, 2008.
Excerpt: In 2002, with The Rise of the Creative Class, Richard Florida launched one of those terms or categories or ideas–there have been many–that try to structure our contemporary societies into something more complicated than the Marxian… More

Something’s Better Than Nothing: Why technology in education doesn’t need to be very good

– Glazer, Nathan. "Something's Better Than Nothing: Why technology in education doesn't need to be very good." Education Next, 2008.
Excerpt: Clayton Christensen is a professor at the Harvard Business School and the author of a widely used book on innovations in business titled The Innovator’s Dilemma. Published originally in 1997, with the subtitle “when new technologies cause great… More

Preschool Politics: States’ efforts to reach the very young

– Glazer, Nathan. "Preschool Politics: States' efforts to reach the very young." Education Next 8 no. 3 (2008).
Excerpt: A holiday-themed campaign ad for Hillary Clinton showed the candidate affixing to boxes wrapped in shiny paper gift tags marked with campaign issues, with the final tag marked “Universal Pre-K.” Beyond this brief nod to the issue, preschool… More

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: An honest look at union hero Albert Shanker

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: An honest look at union hero Albert Shanker." Education Next 8 no. 2 (2008).
Excerpt: “Madman or Visionary?” reads the publicity material that accompanies this biography of Albert Shanker. The dust jacket describes the paradigmatic moment in Woody Allen’s 1973 movie, Sleeper, in which a future Rip Van Winkle awakens to learn… More

Shanghai Surprise

– Glazer, Nathan. "Shanghai Surprise." The New Republic, January 30, 2008.
Excerpt: Shanghai, from which I have just returned after a first visit to China, has a specially built modern museum to house exhibits on the planning for the future Shanghai, and it includes an enormous model of Shanghai today. It is of a scale and detail… More

A Word From Our Sponsor: The Might Wurlitzer by Hugh Wilford Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "A Word From Our Sponsor" Review of The Mighty Wurlitzer by Hugh Wilford, The New York Times, January 20, 2008.
Excerpt: This is a book whose content somewhat contradicts its title. “Mighty Wurlitzer” was the metaphor Frank Wisner, the first chief of political warfare for the Central Intelligence Agency, used to describe the C.I.A.’s “array of front… More

Inside the Testing Factory

– Glazer, Nathan. "Inside the Testing Factory." Education Next, 2008.
Excerpt: No Child Left Behind, aside from its other effects, has generated a new kind of “successful schools” book, one which looks at schools that have done better than expected on mandated state exams. Linda Perlstein spent five years writing on… More

Three Rs and a V: Schools should teach the importance of voting

– Glazer, Nathan. "Three Rs and a V: Schools should teach the importance of voting." Education Next 7 (2007).
Excerpt: Why We Vote is a provocative interpretation of the factors that determine participation in our democratic processes, and specifically voting, the form of participation available to almost all. Campbell begins with the story of Traci Hodgson, the only… More

What Happened to the Social Agenda?

– Glazer, Nathan. "What Happened to the Social Agenda?" The American Scholar (2007).
Excerpt: Seven years ago, I was asked to address the 1950 class of the Harvard Graduate School of Design at their 50th reunion in Cambridge. One sentence in the invitation from Robert Geddes, the distinguished architect and former dean of the Princeton School… More

Exceptionalist

– Glazer, Nathan. "Exceptionalist." The New Republic, January 22, 2007.
Excerpt: Seymour Martin Lipset, the distinguished political sociologist who died on December 31, 2006, tells the story in a memoir of how he shifted in City College (CCNY) from science—as a prelude to dentistry—to sociology. During the Depression, the… More

Beyond the Melting Pot: Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers by Kwame Anthony Appiah and Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny by Amartya Sen Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "Beyond the Melting Pot." Review of Ethics in a World of Strangers by Kwame Anthony Appiah and Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny by Amartya Sen, Education Next, Fall 2006.
Excerpt: The books reviewed here are the first to be published in a series titled “Issues of Our Times,” edited by the omnipresent Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., whose picture, with a brief statement, prefaces each. The volumes are by two… More

Color Me Purple: Colormute: Race Talk Dilemmas in an American School by Mica Pollock Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "Color Me Purple." Review of Colormute: Race Talk Dilemmas in an American School by Mica Pollock, Education Next, Winter 2006.
Excerpt: Mica Pollock taught in a California high school for a year in the mid-1990s, then spent another two years in research in the same school as a graduate student in what appears to be social anthropology. (She is now on the faculty of the Harvard… More

Shame of the Nation: Separate and Unequal by Jonathan Kozol Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "Shame of the Nation." Review of Separate and Unequal by Jonathan Kozol, The New York Times, September 25, 2005.
Excerpt: Jonathan Kozol has been writing books rather similar to this one since “Death at an Early Age” in 1968. He is persistent, it is true, but so is the problem that has aroused his passions since he began teaching in a Boston school more than… More

Training Teachers: The Trouble with Ed Schools by David F. Labaree Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "Training Teachers." Review of The Trouble with Ed Schools by David F. Labaree, Education Next, Summer, 2005.
Excerpt: Once long ago I noticed the great disparity between what theology and religion students were expected to know to write their theses—Latin, Greek, Hebrew, a few modern languages—and where they ended up: teaching religion, not a very high-prestige… More

Neoconservative from the Start

– Glazer, Nathan. "Neoconservative from the start." The Public Interest 159 (2005): 12-17.
Excerpt: When Daniel Bell and Irving Kristol were discussing founding a new journal, The Public Interest, I was teaching at the University of California in Berkeley, after having worked for a year in the Kennedy administration in the Housing and Home Finance… More

Out of Africa: Melville J. Herskovits and the Racial Politics of Knowledge by Jerry Gershenhorn Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "Out of Africa." Review of Melville J. Herskovits and the Racial Politics of Knowledge by Jerry Gershenhorn, The New Republic, February 14, 2005.
Excerpt: Melville J. Herskovits is best known today for his book The Myth of the Negro Past, which appeared in 1941, and argued that one could find among American Negroes “survivals” or “retentions” of their original African… More

The university for sale

– Glazer, Nathan. "The university for sale." The Public Interest 154 (2004): 112-118.
Excerpt: Derek Bok, the former president of Harvard, who in the dozen years since he left the presidency has written five important books on major issues affecting the nation and higher education, has now turned his attention toward a peculiarly difficult and… More

In Praise of Nepotism by Adam Bellow Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "In Praise of Nepotism' by Adam Bellow Reviewed." Review of In Praise of Nepotism by Adam Bellow, Commentary, September, 2003.
Excerpt: This is a book whose provenance may well overshadow any serious discussion of its merits. Adam Bellow is a well-known editor, and he is also the son of Saul Bellow—as he notes here in an astonishingly lengthy list of current writers who are the… More

The black faculty gap

– Glazer, Nathan. "The black faculty gap." The Public Interest, 2003.
Excerpt: Increasing Faculty Diversity: The Occupational Choices of High-Achieving Minority Students, by the sociologists Stephen Cole and Elinor Barber, has already aroused controversy. Recently the subject of a lengthy article in the Chronicle of Higher… More

Do we Need the Census Race Question?

– Glazer, Nathan. "Do we need the census race question?" The Public Interest 149 (2002): 21-31.
Excerpt: A few years ago, asked to comment on the controversy over the demand of so-called multiracial advocacy groups for a “multiracial” category in the census, I made a brash and wildly unrealistic proposal. I will describe the proposal in a moment,… More

Lipset’s big question

– Glazer, Nathan. "Lipset's big question." The Public Interest 148 (2002): 111-118.
Excerpt: Seymore Martin Lipset and Gary Marks’ It Didn’t Happen Here: Why Socialism Failed in the United States represents Lipset’s most recent and most substantial entry in his 50-year effort to understand why socialism made no great impact in the… More

The American diversity and the 2000 Census

– Glazer, Nathan. "The American diversity and the 2000 Census." The Public Interest 144 (2001): 3-18.
Excerpt: The 2000 census, on which the Census Bureau started issuing reports in March and April of 2001, reflected, in its structure and its results, the two enduring themes of American racial and ethnic diversity, present since the origins of American… More

Culture and achievement

– Glazer, Nathan. "Culture and achievement." The Public Interest, 2000.
Excerpt: The relationship between their cultures and the economic and political trajectories of nations and civilizations is now a major topic among analysts of the differences among nations. The context has been set by such provocative theses on the causes… More

The case for racial preferences

– Glazer, Nathan. "The case for racial preferences." The Public Interest 135 (1999): 45-63.
Excerpt: It rarely happens that answers to contested political questions can be found in a relevant body of data and empirical analysis. Certainly, a scarcity of data has long afflicted the debate over preferences for African-American students in admissions… More

The college and the city: then and now

– Glazer, Nathan. "The college and the city: then and now." The Public Interest 132 (1998): 3-20.
Excerpt: The City College of New York celebrated its 150th anniversary during the current academic year. It also celebrated progress in the $85 million restoration of the grand collegiate Gothic structures that the city erected for its free college 90 years… More

In Defense of Preference

–
Glazer, Nathan. "In Defense of Preference." The New Republic, April 6, 1998.
Excerpt: The battle over affirmative action today is a contest between a clear principle on the one hand and a clear reality on the other. The principle is that ability, qualifications, and merit, independent of race, national origin, or sex should prevail… More

Is Affirmative Action on Its Way Out? Should It Be?

– Glazer, Nathan. "Is Affirmative Action on Its Way Out? Should It Be?" Commentary (1998).
Excerpt: For the past several decades, public and private institutions in the United States have operated under a system according to which designated minority groups receive special advantages in employment and education. Although much has been written about… More

American epic: then and now

– Glazer, Nathan. "American epic: then and now." The Public Interest 130 (1998): 106-115.
Excerpt: Not long ago, the remarkably productive Michael Lind published The Alamo: An Epic. It is truly, perhaps surprisingly for our day, an epic poem, long—281 pages—as an epic should be, with an additional 70-page essay on the epic in general and the… More

New York: the ‘old city’

– Glazer, Nathan. "New York: the 'old city'." The Public Interest 125 (1996): 61-79.
Excerpt: It was not much noted, or indeed noted at all, that the Million Man March in Washington last November took place in front of what was described in the 1937 Works Progress Administration (WPA) guide to Washington as the “the largest and most costly… More

Monuments in an age without heroes

– Glazer, Nathan. "Monuments in an age without heroes." The Public Interest 123 (1996): 22-39.
Excerpt: The appearance of The Encyclopedia of New York City, edited by Kenneth T. Jackson, leads one to think of one of Parkinson’s laws: When the capital is complete, the empire is ready to fall. Or perhaps, more grandly, of Hegel’s owl of Minerva,… More

Black and white after thirty years

– Glazer, Nathan. "Black and white after thirty years." The Public Interest 121 (1995): 61-79.
Excerpt: There is nothing that concentrates the mind on an issue more sharply than discovering one has been wrong about it. Twenty years ago, in an article in The Public Interest, I dealt with the subject of the continuing concentration of blacks in American… More

Levin, Jeffries, and the fate of academic autonomy

– Glazer, Nathan. "Levin, Jeffries, and the fate of academic autonomy." The Public Interest 120 (1995): 14-40.
Excerpt: Professors Michael Levin and Leonard Jeffries of the City College of New York have both been in the news—Professor Jeffries is still in the news—for things they have written and said, and for which, they have charged, they have been punished by… More

Immigration and the American future

– Glazer, Nathan. "Immigration and the American future." The Public Interest 118 (1995): 45-60.
Excerpt: The discussion of immigration and its impact on American society should be based on facts, on meaningful projections, and on a reasoned discussion of impacts in various areas. The area in which we have the greatest capacity to determine impact is… More

How social problems are born

– Glazer, Nathan. "How social problems are born." The Public Interest, 1994.
Excerpt: How do we get more attention, more public action, for a problem we consider important? More important, how do we get the right kind of public attention and action, right in scale, and right in the kinds of” solutions the public is willing to accept… More

The Closing Door

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Closing Door." The New Republic December 26, 1993.
Excerpt: Clearly we are at the beginning of a major debate on immigration. The issue has been raised most immediately in recent months by the immigrants, legal and illegal, now charged with the devastating bombing of the World Trade Center and with planning… More

A human capital policy for the cities

– Glazer, Nathan. "A human capital policy for the cities." The Public Interest 112 (1993): 27-49.
Excerpt: A new national administration has taken office, one of whose defining characteristics is its commitment to human capital investment, which it sees as crucial for the restoration of vigor to the American economy, the increase of good jobs for American… More

Subverting the context: Public space and public design

– Glazer, Nathan. "'Subverting the context': Public space and public design." The Public Interest 109 (1992): 3-21.
Excerpt: The age when we built great city parks, or parkways, or boulevards is over and has been for forty years or more. Anyone raised in New York City or Boston knows how much these cities were embellished by the park and parkway designers and builders, and… More

The real world of urban education

– Glazer, Nathan. "The real world of urban education." The Public Interest 106 (1992): 57-75.
Excerpt: We are now in the eighth year of a fever of concern about the quality of American education that has been unparalleled in the history of the republic. We can date it from the 1983 report, A Nation at Risk, though of course the concern was evident for… More

The Lessons of New York City

– Glazer, Nathan. "The lessons of New York City." The Public Interest 104 (1991): 37-49.
Excerpt: To consider the future of our cities here in the building of the New York Academy of Medicine, at 103rd Street and Fifth Avenue, presents an opportunity for some telling contrasts between the city in which this grand building went up and the city of… More

The affirmative action stalemate

– Glazer, Nathan. "The affirmative action stalemate." The Public Interest 86 (1988): 99-114.
Excerpt: Ten years ago the Supreme Court handed down its first decision on affirmative action. It dealt with the case of an applicant who had been denied admission to a medical school, while minority applicants with lesser academic qualifications had been… More

The Constitution and American diversity

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Constitution and American diversity." The Public Interest 85 (1987): 10-21.
Excerpt: The celebration of the framing of the American Constitution comes close upon the heels of the celebration of the hundredth anniversary and rededication of the Statue of Liberty. This is, of course, sheer accident: The Statue was originally intended… More

The City that Never Sweeps

– Glazer, Nathan. The City that Never Sweeps." The Public Interest 83 (1986): 108-112.
Excerpt: Not long ago, a writer who had left New York City and was living in the South was interviewed in the New York Times. She said she had left because all discussion in New York—even among intellectuals and writers—turned sooner or later (generally… More

How Has The U.S. Met Its Major Challenges Since 1945?

– Glazer, Nathan. "How Has The U.S. Met Its Major Challenges Since 1945." Commentary (1985).
Excerpt: Exactly forty years ago, in the first issue of Commentary (November 1945), its founding editor, the late Elliot E. Cohen, wrote an introductory statement outlining the problems with which the new magazine would necessarily be concerned. The year… More

Interests and passions

– Glazer, Nathan. "Interests and passions." The Public Interest 81 (1985): 17-30.
Excerpt: The Public Interestwas launched under the sign of the interests; it now operates in an environment in which the passions are dominant. By “interests” I mean of course “economic interests.” One must add, to define further the attitude of the… More

On Jewish Forebodings

– Glazer, Nathan. "On Jewish Forebodings." Commentary 80 (1985): 32-37.
Excerpt: Students of American Jewry confront an interesting paradox: a sociological literature filled with forebodings about a group whose history, by all relevant measures, has gone very well indeed. I exaggerate, of course; sociological writings on… More

The social policy of the Reagan administration: a review

– Glazer, Nathan. "The social policy of the Reagan administration: a review." The Pubic Interest, 1984.
Excerpt: That the Reagan administration may indeed be something new on the American scene is suggested by the fact that no less than two major programs assessing its domestic social policy were launched shortly after it came into office. One is the Urban… More

Paris – the view from New York

– Glazer, Nathan. "Paris - the view from New York." The Public Interest, 1984.
Excerpt: In the two weeks after my return from a year in Paris, the New York Times reported that there were some serious derailments on the New York City subway, trains were slowed in the August heat to prevent further derailments, and lines were closed for… More

The Rosenberg File, by Ronald Radosh and Joyce Milton Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Rosenberg File', by Ronald Radosh and Joyce Milton Reviewed." Review of The Rosenberg File, by Ronald Radosh and Joyce Milton, Commentary, October, 1983.
Excerpt: Ronald Radosh and Joyce Milton, in this superlative book, describe how their conviction that the Rosenbergs were innocent changed on the basis of a lengthy study of the case, and in particular of the enormous mass of documents that were released… More

Towards a self-service society?

– Glazer, Nathan. "Towards a self-service society?" The Public Interest, 1983.
Excerpt: Perhaps nothing so clearly indicates the possible future shape of the welfare society than the surprising convergence, in at least one respect, of the proposals of two such disparate regimes as the Socialist government of France and the right-wing… More

The Day is Short

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Day Is Short." Commentary (1982).
Excerpt: Morris Abram is a former president of Brandeis University, of the American Jewish Committee, and of the Field Foundation; a former candidate for the Senate from New York; and a man who has held many official appointments, from the United Nations to… More

Christo in Central Park and in Harlem

– Glazer, Nathan. "Christo in Central Park and in Harlem." The Public Interest 68 (1982): 70-77.
Excerpt: The artist Christo (sculptor? happenings director? temporary environments creator?) has proposed for New York’s Central Park what is undoubtedly his largest project to date: “The Gates,” which is to be the embellishment of 27 miles of… More

Ethnicity – North, South, West

– Glazer, Nathan. "Ethnicity - North, South, West." Commentary 73 (1982): 73-79.
Excerpt: Twelve years ago, Daniel P. Moynihan and I, reviewing the condition of politics in New York City for the second edition of Beyond the Melting Pot, described two models of group relations which we dubbed “Northern” and “Southern.” Both models,… More

Javits: The Autobiography of a Public Man Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "Javits: The Autobiography of a Public Man' Reviewed." Commentary (1981).
Excerpt: Jacob K. Javits served longer in the United States Senate than any other Senator from New York State. One of his proudest moments, he tells us, was the day he surpassed the record of Robert F. Wagner, Sr.

The Zone of Destruction

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Zone of Destruction." The Public Interest 65 (1981): 102-108.
Excerpt: This is little book, the first, I believe, on the spreading destruction of New York City’s housing, has received little or no attention, which is a more serious indictment of New York City’s ability to govern itself than its inability to keep the… More

IQ on Trial

– Glazer, Nathan. "IQ on Trial." Commentary, 1981.
Excerpt: We are all increasingly governed by judicial decisions. Decrees of the court tell state officials and employees, teachers and school administrators, staff and administrators of hospitals, mental hospitals, schools for the retarded, government… More

Black English and reluctant judges

– Glazer, Nathan. "Black English and reluctant judges." The Public Interest 62 (1981): 40-54.
Excerpt: Perhaps the most common defense of the remarkable expansion of judicial control and supervision of state institutions-schools, prisons, mental hospitals, state schools for the retarded-that we have seen over the past half dozen years is that, in a… More

Regulating business and the universities: one problem or two?

– Glazer, Nathan. "Regulating business and the universities: one problem or two?" The Public Interest 56 (1979): 43-65.
Excerpt: The history of the Federal government’s regulation of business is much longer than that of its regulation of the universities and colleges. Until the middle 1960’s or so, its purposes in regulating business were also very different from the… More

On subway graffiti in New York

– Glazer, Nathan. "On subway graffiti in New York." The Public Interest 54 (1979): 3-11.
Excerpt: For six years or so one of the more astonishing sights of New York has been the graffiti on the subway trains. The word “graffiti” scarcely suggests, to those who have not seen them, the enormous graphics which decorate the sides of subway… More

The Attack on the Professions

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Attack on the Professions." Commentary, 1978.
Excerpt: Professionalism, professionalization, and the professions are increasingly central to any grasp of modern societies, yet persistently elude proper understanding. On the one hand, the professions are old, and considerably antedate modern society, with… More

Why Bakke Won’t End Reverse Discrimination: 2

– Glazer, Nathan. "Why Bakke Won't End Reverse Discrimination: 2." Commentary, 1978.
Excerpt: If the long opinion written by Justice Powell in the Bakke case were truly “the judgment of the Court,” then I believe there would be grounds for satisfaction among those of us concerned to protect individual rights and to constrain the growing… More

The Rediscovery of the Family

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Rediscovery of the Family." Commentary, 1978.
Excerpt: A funny thing happened on the way to developing a radical critique of the American family: it has turned out that the old model was not so bad after all. One of our best-known radical critics and historians, for example, has come out with a book not… More

Should Judges Administer Social Services?

– Glazer, Nathan. "Should judges administer social services?" The Public Interest, 1978.
Excerpt: What role should the judiciary play in overseeing, correcting, setting standards for, and directly administering social services? The question must be raised because, in recent years, judges have played an ever larger part in administering schools,… More

American Values & American Foreign Policy

– Glazer, Nathan. "American Values & American Foreign Policy." Commentary, 1976.
Excerpt: The United States is probably the only major country in the world in which it is taken quite as a matter of course that people will talk seriously about the relation of the nation’s values to its foreign policy. We in this country seem to… More

An Answer to Lillian Hellman

– Glazer, Nathan. "An Answer to Lillian Hellman." Commentary, 1976.
Excerpt: Lillian Hellman’s Scoundrel Time, tells the story of her appearance before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1952, and tells something, in flashbacks, of her political life, insofar as it involved dealings with Communists or persons… More

Towards an imperial judiciary?

– Glazer, Nathan. "Towards an imperial judiciary?" The Public Interest, 1975.
Excerpt: A non-lawyer who considers the remarkable role of courts in the interpretation of the Constitution and the laws in the United States finds himself in a never-never land-one in which questions he never dreamed of raising are discussed at incredible… More

Hannah Arendt’s America

– Glazer, Nathan. "Hannah Arendt's America." Commentary, 1975.
Excerpt: Hannah Arendt is our teacher. First, in The Origins of Totalitarianism, she taught us about the great horror of our time; then, in The Human Condition, she taught us about how the Greeks understood the political life, and how different their… More

Reform Work, Not Welfare

– Glazer, Nathan. "Reform Work, Not Welfare." The Public Interest, 1975.
Excerpt: We are not thinking about welfare much these days. With a high and rising rate of unemployment, the key issue is clearly what to do about putting men and women back to work. But the welfare issue is always lurking in the wings, and while we await the… More

The Exposed American Jew

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Exposed American Jew," Commentary, 1975.
Excerpt: Until four or five years ago, it could be argued—and I myself did so argue—that the concern of some Jewish community leaders for the position of Jews in the United States was exaggerated. Anti-Semitism had suffered an unexpected but almost total… More

Who Wants Higher Education Even When It’s Free?

– Glazer, Nathan. "Who Wants Higher Education Even When It's Free?" The Public Interest, 1975.
Excerpt: For the past decade, analysts of higher education have foreseen a time coming when almost every high school graduate would expect to enter an institution of higher education. The trends were dear: Just as high school education at the turn of the… More

Why Ethnicity?

– Glazer, Nathan. "Why Ethnicity?" Commentary, 1974.
Excerpt: Ethnicity seems to be a new term. In the sense in which we use it—the character or quality of an ethnic group—it does not appear in the 1933 edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, and only makes its appearance in the 1972 Supplement, where the… More

Time on the Cross: The Economics of American Negro Slavery; Time on the Cross: Evidence and Methods-A Supplement, by Robert Will Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "'Time on the Cross: The Economics of American Negro Slavery'; 'Time on the Cross: Evidence and Methods-A Supplement', by Robert Will Reviewed." Commentary, October, 1974.  
Excerpt: The main themes of Time on the Cross are already familiar: they have been presented in book reviews, in newspaper reports, in television programs. Fogel and Engerman have reexamined all the material available on the economics of Negro slavery…

On Opening Up the Suburbs

– Glazer, Nathan. "On opening up the suburbs." The Public Interest, 1974.
Excerpt: We are living through what seems to be a low point of interest in the “crisis of the cities.” There are no longer any major television documentaries. The economic crisis of the cities, after a modest abatement owing to the decline in the number… More

Ethnicity and the Schools

– Glazer, Nathan. "Ethnicity and The Schools." Commentary, September, 1974.
Excerpt: It is not easy to find the words that would accurately describe the current wave of ethnic feeling which seems now to be sweeping over America. Even the word “wave” may strike some as exaggerated. We live in a world in which the interplay among… More

Perspectives on Health Care

– Glazer, Nathan. "Perspectives on Health Care." The Public Interest, 1973.
Excerpt: In an earlier article in The Public Interest (No. 22, Winter 1971), I explored some international comparisons in health care, pointing in particular to the fact that Sweden and England used less resources for health care than the United States, yet… More

McGovern and the Jews: A Debate

– Glazer, Nathan. "McGovern and the Jews: A Debate." Commentary, 1972.
Excerpt: This will be the first electoral campaign in memory in which the question of specific Jewish interests may play a serious role in voting by American Jews.

The Street Gangs and Ethnic Enterprise

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Street Gangs and Ethnic Enterprise." The Public Interest, 1972.
Excerpt: It has long been felt by those who struggle with the acute problems of living in the low-income areas of our cities that some answers could be found in the informal structures of social life among the low income groups. If the child-care authorities,… More

Is Busing Necessary?

– Glazer, Nathan. "Is Busing Necessary?" Commentary, 1972.
Excerpt: It is the fate of any social reform in the United States—perhaps anywhere—that, instituted by enthusiasts, men of vision, politicians, statesmen, it is soon put into the keeping of full-time professionals. This has two consequences. On the one… More

Paradoxes of Health Care

– Glazer, Nathan. "Paradoxes of Health Care." The Public Interest, 1971.
Excerpt: Some intriguing questions–indeed, mysteries–seem to arise when one examines the field of health care. I intend to present some data–the best available, to my knowledge—bearing on three assumptions which most people accept as… More

The Limits of Social Policy

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Limits of Social Policy." Commentary, September, 1971.
Excerpt: There is a general sense that we face a crisis in social policy, and in almost all its branches. Whether this crisis derives from the backwardness of the United States in social policy generally, the revolt of the blacks, the fiscal plight of the… More

Revolutionism and the Jews: 3 – The Role of the Intellectual

– Glazer, Nathan. "Revolutionism and the Jews: 3 - The Role of the Intellectual." Commentary, September, 1971.
Excerpt: It is notoriously difficult to frame a definition of “intellectuals” that will serve for all times and all issues, but let me suggest a working one: Intellectuals are people who make a living from ideas, and are in varying degrees directly… More

Blood

– Glazer, Nathan. "Blood." The Public Interest, 1971.
Excerpt: No American can read The Gift Relationship: From Human Blood to Social Policy, by Richard M. Titmuss (Pantheon, $6.95) without shame. We are generally aware that American health services are in bad shape. They are enormously expensive, both… More

Vietnam: The Case for Immediate Withdrawal

– Glazer, Nathan. "Vietnam: The Case for Immediate Withdrawal." Commentary, May, 1971.
Excerpt: One is embarrassed to add new words on Vietnam. Already there have been millions, and despite the good sense so many of them have shown, they have as yet, after all these years, been unable to sway the American government, through three successive… More

A Breakdown in Civil Rights Enforcement?

– Glazer, Nathan. "A breakdown in civil rights enforcement?" The Public Interest, 1971.
Excerpt: When the enormous report 1 of the United States Commission on Civil Rights appeared last October, it made page one of the New York Times, under the predictable headlines, “U.S. Rights Panel Finds Breakdown in Enforcement.” The first sentence of… More

On Being Deradicalized

– Glazer, Nathan. "On Being Deradicalized." Commentary, 1970.
Excerpt: How does a radical—a mild radical, it is true, but still someone who felt closer to radical than to liberal writers and politicians in the late 1950s—end up by early 1970 a conservative, a mild conservative, but still closer to those who now call… More

Social Policy, May/June 1970 Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "Social Policy, May/June 1970 Reviewed." Review of Social Policy, Commentary, August, 1970.
Excerpt: Social Policy is a new journal devoted generally to social change, but specifically to a critical examination of the various agencies of social policy—in education, health, welfare, housing, manpower training, and the like.

A New Look at the Melting Pot

– Glazer, Nathan. "A new look at the melting pot." The Public Interest, 1969.
Excerpt: The major part of Beyond the Melting Pot by myself and Daniel P. Moynihan dates from 1960-61. It was in those years, at the end of Mayor Wagner’s second term, that the chapters on the five major ethnic groups (Negroes, Puerto Ricans, Jews,… More

Beyond Income Maintenance – a note on welfare in New York City

– Glazer, Nathan. "Beyond income maintenance - a note on welfare in New York City." The Public Interest, 1969.
Excerpt: In New York, we are in the position of having glimpsed the future, and of being able to report that it doesn’t work. While the rest of the country and the federal government struggle to replace what is broadly felt to be an outmoded welfare system… More

110 Livingston Street by David Rogers Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "110 Livingston Street, by David Rogers Reviewed." Review of 110 Livingston Street by David Rogers, Commentary, May, 1969.
Excerpt: One can scarcely conceive of an issue more important to the future of the cities than the failure of the New York City Board of Education and the political structure of the City of New York to institute an effective desegregation of the city’s… More

Blacks, Jews & the Intellectuals

– Glazer, Nathan. "Blacks, Jews & the Intellectuals." Commentary, 1969.
Excerpt: I think it is all for the best that Earl Raab and Milton Himmelfarb have raised as sharply as they have in the pages of Commentary the issue of black anti-Semitism-its extent, its sources, and its dangers. …

On Task Forcing

– Glazer, Nathan. "On task forcing." The Public Interest, 1969.
Excerpt: The presidential-transition task force has had a short history of only eight years. We have it on the authority of a very high figure in the present administration that the Eisenhower administration, when it came into office, did not avail itself of… More

“Student Power” in Berkeley

– Glazer, Nathan. "'Student power' in Berkeley." The Public Interest, 1968.
Excerpt: Whatever students may be doing to change the world—and they are clearly doing a good deal—it could turn out that, in the end, it is rather easier to change the world than the university. This, it seems, is the inference to be drawn from four… More

Jewish Identity on the Suburban Frontier by Marshall Sklare and Joseph Greenblum Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "Jewish Identity on the Suburban Frontier', by Marshall Sklare and Joseph Greenblum Reviewed." Review of Jewish Identity on the Suburban Frontier by Marshall Sklare and Joseph Greenblum, Commentary, August, 1968.
Excerpt: “Lakeville” is a suburb of a Midwest metropolis, with a population of twenty-five thousand, a quarter of whom are Jews. It is an old suburb, which grew rapidly in the years after World War II, and as a result its Jewish community consists of old… More

The New Left and Its Limits

– Glazer, Nathan. "The New Left and Its Limits." Commentary, 1968.
Excerpt: For the last few years I have looked with increasing skepticism on the analyses and the actions of the radical Left in America. By the radical Left I mean those who believe there is something fundamentally and irredeemably wrong with our society, and… More

Housing Problems and Housing Policies

– Glazer, Nathan. "Housing Problems and Housing Policies." The Public Interest, 1967.
Excerpt: The question of what is “good housing” is never as simple as it appears. Primitive dwellings on Greek isles delight architects and city planners who are horrified by the housing and planning of Levitt and Sons. In Japan, the sixth most powerful… More

La Vida: A Puerto Rican Family in the Culture of Poverty – San Juan and New York by Oscar Lewis Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "La Vida: A Puerto Rican Family in the Culture of Poverty - San Juan and New York', by Oscar Lewis Reviewed." Review of La Vida: A Puerto Rican Family in the Culture of Poverty - San Juan and New York by Oscar Lewis, Commentary, February, 1967.
Excerpt: This enormous volume is presented as only the first of a series on Puerto Rican slum families in San Juan and New York. It will form an important part of the literature building up on the Puerto Rican community in New York City and its background in… More

The Negro American

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Negro American." The Public Interest, 1966.
Excerpt: The two issues of Daedalus (Fall, 1965 and Winter, 1966) devoted to “The Negro American” provide as excellent a guide to our peculiar problem today as one could reasonably hope for. The two issues contain twenty-six articles, and a lengthy… More

Paradoxes of American Poverty

– Glazer, Nathan. "Paradoxes of American Poverty." The Public Interest, 1965.
Excerpt: Presidents, socialists, reformers and academicians have set the prevailing contemporary tone in discussing poverty in America– shock and outrage that it should exist, followed by a direct and earnest passion that we should do everything necessary… More

What Happened at Berkeley

– Glazer, Nathan. "What Happened at Berkeley." Commentary, 1965.
Excerpt: As I write this, in late December, we in Berkeley are in the Christmas lull. The university’s 18,000 undergraduates are for the most part at home, many of the faculty and even some of the graduate students are away. But despite the quiet, the… More

Negroes and Jews: The New Challenge to Pluralism

– Glazer, Nathan. "Negroes and Jews: The New Challenge to Pluralism." Commentary, 1964.
Excerpt: If today one re-reads the article by Kenneth Clark on Negro-Jewish relations that was published in Commentary almost nineteen years ago, one will discover that tension between Negroes and Jews is neither of recent origin nor a product of the civil… More

The Black Jews of Harlem: Negro Nationalism and the Dilemmas of Negro Leadership by Howard Brotz Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Black Jews of Harlem: Negro Nationalism and the Dilemmas of Negro Leadership by Howard Brotz Reviewed." Commentary, March, 1964.
Excerpt: It is unfortunate that Howard Brotz decided to give his book so limited a title as The Black Jews of Harlem. Half of it is indeed about this strange sect—less strange now, to be sure, than when he first studied it more than ten years ago, for we… More

The Good Society

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Good Society." Commentary, September, 1963.
Excerpt: It used to be—it seems to have been so even yesterday—that people with a reforming bent of mind knew, or thought they knew, what they meant by the “good society,” and they knew, or thought they knew, what forms of social action ought to be… More

A Commentary Report: The Puerto Ricans

– Glazer, Nathan. "A Commentary Report: The Puerto Ricans." Commentary, July, 1963.
Excerpt: If someone twenty-five years ago had looked around at the potential sources of new immigration to New York City, his eye might well have fallen on Puerto Rico, but he would probably also have concluded that the Puerto Ricans, if they came to New… More

Herbert H. Lehman of New York

– Glazer, Nathan. "Herbert H. Lehman of New York." Commentary, 1963.
Excerpt: To anyone growing up in New York City in the 1930’s, the trinity of LaGuardia, Lehman, and Roosevelt seemed as fixed and permanent as the city streets. It was hardly possible to remember who had preceded them as mayor, governor, and President;… More

Cuba & the Peace Movement

– Glazer, Nathan. "Cuba & the Peace Movement." Commentary, 1962.
Excerpt: Shortly before the President’s October 22 speech declaring a quarantine on shipment of arms to Cuba and demanding the removal of Soviet missiles from that country, the New York Times reported on a dozen or more candidates for Congress around… More

City Problems & Jewish Responsibilities

– Glazer, Nathan. "City Problems & Jewish Responsibilities." Commentary, 1962.
Excerpt: The American city is distinguished among big cities by virtue of the fact that the different ethnic elements making it up are very often of approximately equal size.

Is New York City Ungovernable?

– Glazer, Nathan. "Is New York City Ungovernable?" Commentary, 1961.
Excerpt: Anyone studying the city of New York (as I have done for the past year or so) is likely to run across certain facts that cast a rather strange light on the present confusion in its politics. For example: In 1940, in the seventh year of the… More

The Peace Movement in America… 1961

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Peace Movement in America... 1961." Commentary, 1961.
Excerpt: Why is it that the peace movement in America has never been able to attract the kind of mass support which has gathered around the peace movement in England? The danger of nuclear war is the greatest political issue of our time. And it is an issue… More

Is ‘Integration’ Possible in the New York Schools?

– Glazer, Nathan. "Is 'Integration' Possible in the New York Schools?" Commentary, 1960.
Excerpt: It is now more than six years since “integration” became an issue in the New York City school system; and, very likely, at the start of the new school term some of New York’s Negro parents—for the third time in a row—will stage a… More

American Immigration, by Maldwyn Allen Jones; American Labor, by Henry Pelling; American Philanthropy, by Robert H. Bremner Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. “American Immigration, by Maldwyn Allen Jones; American Labor, by Henry Pelling; American Philanthropy, by Robert H. Bremner Reviewed." Commentary, August, 1960.
Excerpt: These three books are the most recent additions to the Chicago History of American Civilization, which has been imaginatively, even brilliantly, edited by Daniel Boorstin. It is only with the present three volumes that it becomes possible to see… More

The Nation’s Children Edited by Eli Ginzberg Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Nation's Children', Edited by Eli Ginzberg Reviewed." Review of The Nation's Children, by Eli Ginzberg, Commentary, June, 1960.
Excerpt: These thirty-one papers were prepared as background reading for the decennial White House Conference on Children and Youth held late in March in Washington, with a vast attendance from all over the country.

W.E.B. Du Bois: Negro Leader in a Time of Crisis by Francis L. Broderick Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "W.E.B. Du Bois: Negro Leader in a Time of Crisis', by Francis L. Broderick Reviewed." Review of W.E.B. Du Bois: Negro Leader in a Time of Crisis, by Francis L. Broderick, Commentary, April, 1960.
Excerpt: In 1915, Booker T. Washington died. Dr. Du Bois, then editor of The Crisis, the organ of the newly founded National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, for some years had been attacking Booker T. Washington and the policies that had… More

“The Newcomers’, by Oscar Handlin; Wages in the Metropolis by Martin Segal Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Newcomers, by Oscar Handlin; Wages in the Metropolis, by Martin Segal Reviewed." Commentary, March, 1960.
Excerpt: These are the third and fourth volumes of the New York Metropolitan Region Study, of which two volumes (Anatomy of a Metropolis, by Edgar M. Hoover and Raymond Vernon, and Made in New York, by Roy B. Helfgott and others) have already been published,… More

Notes on Southern California: ‘A Reasonable Suggestion as to How Things Can Be’?

– Glazer, Nathan. "Notes on Southern California: A Reasonable Suggestion as to How Things Can Be," Commentary, August, 1959.
Excerpt: When I left Los Angeles one day last February, after a week in Southern California, the newspaper I picked up at the airport reported that the population of Los Angeles County was now 5,800,000, and that it would reach some unimaginable figure by… More

New York’s Puerto Ricans: Formation and Future of a New Community

– Glazer, Nathan. "New York's Puerto Ricans: Formation and Future of a New Community." Commentary, December, 1958.
Excerpt: New York’s Puerto Rican immigrants, who have already established a community in the city larger than the population of Seattle or New Orleans, are a historical accident. When mass immigration from Europe was shut off in 1924, it seemed… More

Alcohol and the Jews by Charles R. Snyder Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "Alcohol and the Jews', by Charles R. Snyder Reviewed." Review of Alcohol and the Jews, by Charles R. Snyder, Commentary, June, 1958.
Excerpt: The Yale Center of Alcohol Studies has been interested for a number of years in the remarkable differences in the rates of alcoholism among various ethnic groups in America. Thus, Jews show very low rates for all the disorders and pathologies… More

Rabbi in America by Israel Knox Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "Rabbi in America', by Israel Knox Reviewed." Review of Rabbi in America, by Israel Knox, Commentary, March 1958.
Excerpt: Rabbi in America is one of the volumes in the Library of American Biography series, edited by Oscar Handlin; and if, as one assumes, it is the only volume to be devoted to an American Jew, Isaac Mayer Wise was a good choice. He combines in his career… More

Crestwood Heights by John R. Seeley, R. Alexander Simm, and Elizabeth W. Looseley Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "Crestwood Heights' by John R. Seeley, R. Alexander Simm, and Elizabeth W. Looseley Reviewed." Review of Crestwood Heights, by John R. Seeley, R. Alexander Simm, and Elizabeth W. Looseley, Commentary, November, 1956.
Excerpt: “Crestwood Heights” is a well-to-do suburb of Toronto. I am not sure precisely how “well-to-do”—one of the problems of this book, indeed, is that just this kind of specific information is often lacking. Yet one would guess that the houses… More

Strangers in the Land by John Higham Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "Strangers in the Land', by John Higham Reviewed." Review of Strangers in the Land, by John Higham, Commentary, June 1956.
Excerpt: John Higham’s book deals with the background of one of the most important decisions in American history—the decision, made thirty-five years ago, to limit immigrants to this country to a relatively small and carefully selected number. Mr. Higham… More

The Jewish Revival in America, II: Its Religious Side

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Jewish Revival in America, II: Its Religious Side." Commentary, January, 1956.
Excerpt: Last month we described the various pressures and patterns that have led to larger and larger numbers of American Jews joining religious institutions. More Jewish children today attend Jewish religious school, more Jewish adults today are members of… More

The Jewish Revival in America: I: A Sociologist’s Report

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Jewish Revival in America: I: A Sociologist's Report." Commentary, 1955.
Excerpt: This is the first of two essays on American Jewry’s present religious revival, based on a series of lectures delivered by the author this past spring at the University of Chicago under the auspices of the Walgreen Foundation. The most striking… More

Conservative Judaism: An American Religious Movement by Marshall Sklare Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "Conservative Judaism: An American Religious Movement' by Marshall Sklare, Reviewed." Review of Conservative Judaism: An American Religious Movement, by Marshall Sklare, Commentary, September, 1955.
Excerpt: Conservative Judaism is a work of the highest distinction, both as a study of American Jewish life and as a contribution to contemporary American sociology. In both these fields, ignorance, pretension, and bad writing have been so much in evidence… More

The Study of Man: Civil Liberties and the American People

– Glazer, Nathan. " The Study of Man: Civil Liberties and the American People." Commentary, August, 1955.
Excerpt: Ten or twenty years ago, no one could have predicted that the defense of civil liberties would become the complicated problem it is today.

Four Rabbis in Search of American Judaism: Commentary on a History of Boston’s Temple Israel

– Glazer, Nathan. "Four Rabbis in Search of American Judaism: Commentary on a History of Boston's Temple Israel." Commentary, 1955.
Excerpt: Temple Israel in Boston has enjoyed a succession of notable rabbis in its one hundred years of existence: Solomon Schindler, Charles Fleischer, Harry Levi, Joshua Loth Liebman, and today, Roland B. Gittelsohn. Nathan Glazer here describes the… More

The American People and Cold War Policy: Is Public Opinion Against Foreign Involvement?

– Glazer, Nathan. "The American People and Cold War Policy: Is Public Opinion Against Foreign Involvement?" Commentary 17, 1954.
Excerpt: The series of battles over American foreign policy in recent years, and the new one shaping up around the problem of Indo-China, might tempt a literate journalist to describe the situation as one in which The best lack all conviction, while the worst… More

The Study of Man: New Light on ‘The Authoritarian Personality’

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Study of Man: New Light on 'The Authoritarian Personality.'" Commentary, 1954.
Excerpt: The Authoritarian Personality, published in 1950 as part of the Studies in Prejudice series sponsored by the American Jewish Committee, stands as one of the most ambitious efforts of modern American social science. In the 990 pages, 500,000 words,… More

Dissent: A Quarterly of Socialist Opinion Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "Dissent: A Quarterly of Socialist Opinion' Reviewed." Review of Dissent, Commentary, February, 1954.
Excerpt: When, about a year ago, one heard that a group of writers dissatisfied with the prevailing trends in American politics—Irving Howe, Lewis Coser, Travers Clement, Meyer Schapiro, Harold Orlans, and others were among them—were going to start a new… More

The Study of Man: More Insanity Than a Century Ago?

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Study of Man: More Insanity Than a Century Ago?" Commentary, 1953.
Excerpt: The various social sciences, like all disciplines possessing an individual history and a corps of specially trained practitioners, ask their own questions, and answer them in their own way. It is not often that the questions they ask are the… More

America First: The Battle Against Intervention; 1940-41, by Wayne S. Cole Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "America First: The Battle Against Intervention; 1940-41,' by Wayne S. Cole Reviewed." Commentary, September, 1953.
Excerpt: This book, the first full-length study of the America First Committee, describes events that took place only a dozen years ago, and in the full blaze of publicity. Yet they read here as if they might have taken place a half century ago. It is amazing… More

The Study of Man: America’s Ethnic Pattern

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Study of Man: America's Ethnic Pattern." Commentary, April, 1953.
Excerpt: The fact that Americans are also— and in many cases, primarily—Germans, Italians, Poles, Jews, etc. is taken with deadly seriousness by the general mass of Americans, but tends rather to be ignored by contemporary writers on social problems, and… More

The Method of Senator McCarthy: Its Origins, Its Uses, and Its Prospects

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Method of Senator McCarthy: Its Origins, Its Uses, and Its Prospects." Commentary, 1953.
Excerpt: Toward the end of 1948 and beginning of 1949, various reputable American publications reported charges that a number of Germans convicted of war crimes had been subjected to atrocious brutalities by American investigators. One group of German war… More

The Future of American Politics, by Samuel Lubell

– Glazer, Nathan. "Review of The Future of American Politics, by Samuel Lubell," Commentary, July, 1952.
Excerpt: Samuel Lubell’s The Future of American Politics is, in this reviewer’s opinion, the best book yet written on American politics of the last twenty years; and if a better one should appear, it is hard to see how it could be anything but a… More

The Study of Man: What Americans Get Out of College

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Study of Man: What Americans Get Out of College." Commentary, May, 1952.
Excerpt: The uniqueness of America is nowhere more apparent than in the fact that the college-educated group, which in most countries of the Western world is the elite, is here a mass. There were in this country, five years ago, four and a half million… More

The Study of Man: Why Jews Stay Sober

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Study of Man: Why Jews Stay Sober." Commentary, 1952.
Excerpt: In one respect, at least, the American Jews are not very different from the Israeli Jews who contemptuously dismiss them as assimilated goyim: neither have much use for hard liquor. And therein is wrapped one of the most persistent mysteries of a… More

The Study of Man: What Opinion Polls Can and Can’t Do

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Study of Man: What Opinion Polls Can and Can't Do." Commentary, 1951.
Excerpt: Since 1948, public opinion polls have not been much in the public eye. The Great Miscalculation of 1948 drove them from their favored places in the daily newspapers, and the experts in opinion and attitude research, commercial and academic, retired… More

The Troubled Air, by Irwin Shaw Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Troubled Air," Commentary, April, 1950.
Excerpt: One by one, our young novelists are moving from considerations of war and its aftermath to considerations of politics. Irwin Shaw has selected a narrower canvas than Norman Mailer, but he covers it far more thoroughly. It is legitimate entirely to… More

‘Science is a Sacred Cow’ by Anthony Standen Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "'Science is a Sacred Cow' by Anthony Standen Reviewed." Review of Science is a Sacred Cow, by Anthony Standen, Commentary, August, 1950.
Excerpt: From a distance, science looks as a whole like the secure, foolproof, intelligent, and eminently successful enterprise that it is only in part. Up close one discovers that the uncertainty characteristic of our life here below has not left it… More

The Study of Man: The Authoritarian Personality in Profile

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Study of Man: The Authoritarian Personality in Profile." Commentary, June, 1950.
Excerpt: Four years ago, this department reported on an approach to the study of prejudice which, it was predicted, held great promise for the future: Else Frenkel-Brunswik and R. Nevitt Sanford of the University of California in Berkeley had made an… More

Study of Man: What Sociology Knows About American Jews

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Study of Man: What Sociology Knows About American Jews." Commentary, 1950.
Excerpt: The sociological study of American Jews should help us to find the answers to many of the questions about the nature of Jewish life that are continually being raised in private and public discussion by Jews and non-Jews. However, as Nathan Glazer… More

A Child’s Guide to a Parent’s Mind

– Glazer, Nathan. "A Child's Guide to a Parent's Mind by Sally Liberman Reviewed." Commentary, March, 1950.
Excerpt: This book grew out of questions asked by young persons of seventeen to twenty-five as to why their parents were so impossible, and was written by a young woman who was graduated from college in 1950. Both questioners and authors are referred to as… More

The Study of Man: ‘The American Soldier’ as Science

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Study of Man: 'The American Soldier' as Science." Commentary, November, 1947.
Excerpt: [The Emperor Frederick II] wanted to find out what kind of speech and what manner of speech children would have when they grew up, if they spoke to no one beforehand. So he bade foster mothers and nurses to suckle the children, to bathe and wash… More

Shalom Means Peace by Robert St. John Reviewed

– Glazer, Nathan. "'Shalom Means Peace', by Robert St. John Reviewed." Review of Shalom Means Peace by Robert St. John. Commentary May 1949.
Excerpt: Mr. St. John, a journalist who has written books about Yugoslavia, here covers a few months in the spring and summer of 1948 in Palestine, while warfare and truces alternated. Mr. St. John was very impressed with the new Jewish state and its people… More

Eagle at My Eyes

– Glazer, Nathan. "Review of Eagle at My Eyes by Norman Katkov." Commentary, March, 1948.
Excerpt: This book begins with the story of a pogrom and ends with the line, “All right, you bastards [the Gentiles], here I come.” The hero, named Joe, tells his story in the first person, in a series of flashbacks. He is a reporter in St. Paul. Seven… More

The Study of Man: The Alienation of Modern Man

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Study of Man: The Alienation of Modern Man." Commentary, 1947.
Excerpt: If, as Sidney Hook wrote recently, the two great semantic beacons of our time are the terms “transition” and “crisis,” then a third term is perhaps necessary to capture the special quality of this transition and this crisis. That term—the… More

The Study of Man: What is Sociology’s Job?

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Study of Man: What is Sociology's Job?" Commentary, 1947.
Excerpt: The recent annual meeting of the American Sociological Society in Chicago (Hotel Stevens, December 27- 30) brought together perhaps 1,000 people who call themselves sociologists-mostly professors, instructors, and graduate students, but also… More

The Parlor Terrorists

– Glazer, Nathan. "The Parlor Terrorists." Commentary, January, 1947.
Excerpt: If some of my best friends are right, and the big thing right now is to show that the Jew is as common a common man as the next, Arthur Koestler’s Thieves in the Night is the finest thing that has happened to the Jews since Benny Leonard. First… More

The Study of Man: Government by Manipulation

– "The Study of Man: Government by Manipulation." Commentary, July, 1946.
Excerpt: Everyone within reach of a radio loudspeaker or a newspaper headline knows of the tremendous advances made by science during the war: atomic bombs, radiocontrolled planes, rockets and radar, DDT, new ways of preventing disease, better ways of curing… More

The Study of Man: The Social Scientists Dissect Prejudice

– "The Study of Man: The Social Scientists Dissect Prejudice." Commentary, May, 1946.
Excerpt: The intellectual current that now impels writers—in the big national magazines as well as the more serious little magazines—to talk about race prejudice has not left social scientists unmoved. In almost any current issue of the professional… More

The Study of Man

– "The Study of Man." Commentary, November, 1945.
Excerpt: Social scientists can no longer be reproached for busying themselves with theoretical issues while ignoring the major problems confronting mankind. The ivory towers now stand abandoned; almost every scholar of note in the fields of sociology,… More