Against the Grain: The New Criterion on Art and Intellect at the End of the Twentieth Century

As a critical periodical The New Criterion is probably more consistently worth reading than any other magazine in English. -Julian Symons, Times Literary Supplement. Since its founding in 1982, The New Criterion has emerged as the foremost voice of critical dissent in the culture wars now raging throughout American society. Against the Grain brings together more than forty of the magazine’s most incisive essays, challenging radical orthodoxies on a wide range of controversial subjects, from the philosophy of Michel Foucault to the art of Anselm Kiefer to the rationale of multiculturalism. Samuel Lipman writes on the future of classical music, Hilton Kramer on the plight of today’s art museum, Joseph Epstein on the poet C. P Cavafy, and Roger Kimball on the treason of the intellectuals, as well as John Simon on Vladimir Nabokov and Donald Lyons on Angels in America. The collection contains thoughtful reevaluations of Henry James, Jean Genet, Harold Laski, A. E. Housman, Willem de Kooning, and Frederick Douglass. Written with wit, clarity, and fierce independence, Against the Grain is a major contribution to sanity and common sense on the most contentious cultural issues of the day.