The American Scholar

Inspired by Ralph Waldo Emerson’s famous speech, The American Scholar is the quarterly magazine of public affairs, literature, science, history, and culture published by the Phi Beta Kappa Society since 1932.

Illegals

LETTERS

Beauty and the Beef

The Delta Blues

Fighting the Endless War

License to Thrive?

Ancient Sites Beneath the Sea

Screened at Birth

Descent Into the Underworld

Made for You and Me • This land has contained our best and worst impulses

Paying to Be Locked Up • PRIVATE PRISON COMPANIES TREAT IMMIGRANT DETAINEES LIKE CONVICTED CRIMINALS—AND REAP HUGE PROFITS FROM THE PEOPLE THEY HOLD

Black Lives and the Boston Massacre • JOHN ADAMS’S FAMOUS DEFENSE OF THE BRITISH MAY NOT BE, AS WE’VE ALWAYS UNDERSTOOD IT, THE ULTIMATE EXPRESSION OF PRINCIPLE AND THE RULE OF LAW

No Harmony in the Heartland • TWO SMALL TOWNS IN NORTHEAST IOWA ARE CAUGHT UP IN THE NATIONAL STRUGGLE OVER IMMIGRATION

SEVEN NEW POEMS BY WALT WHITMAN …

TWO POEMS

The Sleeper • IN A RURAL HOSPITAL, A PATIENT PASSES THE NIGHT WITHOUT KNOWING HOW LUCKY HE IS TO HAVE AVOIDED DEATH

Whiskey Foxtrot One-One • MY FATHER WAS TRAINING TO FIGHT A WAR, BUT HIS REAL BATTLE WAS WITH HIMSELF

Launching the Greatest Fleet • HOW AMERICAN WAR SURPLUS HELPED BUILD THE WORLD’S MOST SUCCESSFUL MERCHANT MARINE

This Side of Paradise • AGING HAS ITS REWARDS UNTIL IT DOESN’T. I AM READY TO CONTEMPLATE THE END BUT NOT, YET, TO GIVE IN TO IT

Voyages

Come to the Cabaret • Remembering Mabel Mercer, whose voice was intimate and wise

A Pleasure to Read You • Shouldn’t literature enchant, surprise, and teach us? And to make this happen, shouldn’t we be the most expert readers we can be?

Where the Sun Finally Set • A new look at the island empire’s prize possession

Of Faith and Tragedy • A scholar of early Christianity on how her work informed her life

Enigma From the East • A Soviet émigré’s never-ending battle to be understood

The Guru of Athens • Can age-old philosophy lead the way to happiness?

Making Himself at Home • A German-born composer and his English oratorios

The Portrait Master • Known for rendering others, a writer turns his attention inward

Commonplace Book

AMERICAN PLACES