Illiberal Education: The Politics of Race and Sex on Campus, by Dinesh D`Souza (Vintage, $12). This book last year identified and framed the issue of political correctness, which continues to be the most divisive issue in academia today. The dogma of P.C., argues D`Sousa, a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, grew out of accusations by student activists, faculty and administrators that universities were
”structurally” racist, sexist and class-based, which led to imposition of regulations governing admissions, hiring, curriculum and even personal conduct and speech. In a new foreword for the paperback edition, D`Souza tells of his adventures since the hardcover became a national best seller. They range from the gratifying (he is allowed to speak before academic audiences, who are warned against shouting him down and throwing things) to the absurd (in an encounter with an angry Afro-American studies professor, he is accused of promoting racist views-but not of being a racist, because ”You are a person of color. You cannot be a racist”).
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In a Word, edited by Jack Hitt (Dell Laurel, $10.95). As an editor at Harpers, Hitt pursued an idea that had stuck in his mind since he was college freshman and for the first time, in the school library, encountered a reference to the Venerable Bede. By the end of the day, he had encountered the Venerable Bede three more times, and he wondered if there was a word, in the genus of deja vu, serendipity or coincidence, that perfectly described what had happened. Failing to find one, he found himself with a meaning in search of a word. He began writing letters to figures in journalism, sports, music, the arts, science, etc., asking if they had any meanings for which they had to coin a word, and the result is this book, largely an amusement but provocative all the same. Consider William F. Buckley`s ”hecticity” (hectic plus ity), meaning a state of frenetic demand or of superheated activity; and writer Bernard Cooper`s ”retrotort” (retrospect plus retort), an ideal remark that comes to mind too late.
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The World Almanac of Presidential Campaigns, by Eileen Shields-West;
illustrated by Jeff MacNelly (World Almanac, $10.95). In this season of political advertising, debating, mudslinging and silliness, readers of this book may find reassurance in these facts, figures, slogans and assorted tales from the past, especially from the pre-television era, when the candidates were more colorful and the political games often much rougher. John Quincy Adams` opponents, for example, called him a pimp on the unfounded charge that he had once procured a girl for a Russian Czar. William McKinley was called not only a demagogue, which is relatively mild, but also an anti-Christ, a madman and a traitor. The nation survived all that and more and probably will continue to do so.
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As the Crow Flies, by Jeffrey Archer (Harper, $6.50). It is only April, and already we have the first beach book-big and fat at 789 pages, a story that sprawls over seven decades and four continents-from England to France to India to the United States-at the end of which the protagonist, Charlie Trumper, born poor in London`s East End parlays a vegetable cart in Whitechapel into the world`s most elegant department store, Trumper`s, in Chelsea Terrace, having moved but a few miles from home ”as the crow flies.” But what a life. He marries his childhood sweetheart and adopts her illegitimate son, goes to war, makes an implacable enemy in the trenches at the battle of the Marne, and on and on, all against a backdrop of great historical events and personalities.
