Foreword: Truth in Fancy

The history of the United States is as replete with mistakes and disasters as that of other nations, despite our not unusual tendency to admire ourselves and view the past through a haze of nostalgia. I do it myself. Although I once edited a book of American war diaries—reading hundreds of them in the process—I can lapse into the old presumption of this country as a virtuous, unwarlike nation, one that only ends up fighting when it gets dragged reluctantly into it.

Yet during our 230-year history we have fought some dozen serious wars, including declared ones and those authorized by Congress, which amounts to more than one per generation. There have been another ten or so brief military conflicts. And we have begun the twenty-first century with a grim and currently failing conflict that due to no fault of our soldiers looks increasingly like our last extended undeclared war.

Despite this, the United States in fact was the first nation to establish itself on the idea of democracy and the rights of all citizens. The radically democratic founders of this country were suspicious of standing or professional armies, fearing that they could too easily become forces of tyranny. And indeed we have shown an ability to somehow pull ourselves, if slowly at times, out of governmental crises, economic catastrophes and war—including two wars with Britain (both of which were touch and go), two with Germany, and now the second Iraq conflict.

Too often such wars, along with financial panics, depressions and ecological catastrophes, seem to come out of left field. It makes one wonder how we could better avoid such things.

Maybe fiction would be a good place to start. A governmental agency should be established, using the money required to build, say, one-half of an F-16 fighter jet, comprising of a small, cozy, pleasant group of readers looking into works of literature to discover and analyze potential problems. These gentle bibliophiles might provide more valuable information further in the future than the predictions of scientists, military experts, business leaders and political advisers, who are typically so caught in the foggy machinations of the "real" present that they don't see very far ahead.

A quarter-century before scientists began seriously discussing the subject, J. G. Ballard's novel The Drowned World (1962) describes our planet being overcome by global warming. London becomes a swamp, it's hot everywhere, and the bugs are driving people crazy. Aldous Huxley's 1932 novel Brave New World predicts the generalized use of drugs to control mood and the demise of the institution of marriage. George Orwell's novel 1984, published in 1949, chronicles a dystopian future in which "Big Brother is watching you," a prophecy that gets truer by the day, with computers now making record-keeping and spying available to a degree unimaginable fifty-six years ago. Even Orwell couldn't predict the titanic amount of data about individuals that is gathered and kept, down to what one buys in a grocery store.

Literature is not only capable of extraordinary foresightedness; it also helps understand and encourage human rights. As unlikely as that may sound, historian Lynn Hunt 's recent book, Inventing Human Rights: A History, holds that in the eighteenth century the reading of novels was one of the five primary causes of the spread of human rights and equality. Novels and theater allowed educated people to empathize with people of all sorts, including those of lower classes.

As soon as the Department of Readers is established, I hope that they look at this issue of TMR, which reflects on a number of evolving but classic American problems. Joe Wilkins's essay "Mississippi Stories" describes teaching public school children in Sunflower, Mississippi, portraying both the still shocking effects of racial injustice and the sometimes concealed but very real warmth of the people living there. Barry Silesky's essay "One Step" describes the effects of MS on the life of a strong, athletic man, his accommodation to loss despite the increasing challenges that he faces.

Brian Bartels talks with playwright Sam Shepard...