Literature Network » Samuel Butler

New wine in old bottles. (the erosion of a shared cultural and intellectual frame-of-reference)(Editorial)

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From: Harper's Magazine
Date: 19980201
Author:Lapham, Lewis

Books that have informed earlier stages in the growth of American culture can help recover the intellectual reference points that are being lost. The timeless benefits of genuine knowledge are needed in an era of digitally enhanced vacuity. A plan for accomplishing this restoration is detailed.

The oldest books are still just out for those who have not read them.

--Samuel Butler

Twenty years ago at Yale University I taught a semester's course on the nature of the news media, and by way of supplemental reading I assigned two nineteenth-century novels, A Modern Instance, by ...

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