The American Idea: The Best of The Atlantic Monthly

The American Idea
First Parish Church Meetinghouse, 3 Church Street, Harvard Square (Corner of Mass. Ave. and Church St.)
Friday, October 19th, 7:00 pm, $5
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There are a lot of things you could do to celebrate your 150th anniversary. For a magazine, publishing a book seems like a good idea: anthologize the best of your magazine writing in a more permanent format so it can be remembered for all time. And that's just what The Atlantic Monthly has done, collecting 78 of its favorite pieces in The American Idea: The Best of The Atlantic Monthly; 150 Years of Writers and Thinkers Who Shaped Our History, edited by Robert Vare, the magazine's editor at large. In the words of the Atlantic editors, the "American idea" explored in the book is:

...the fractious, maddening approach to the conduct of human affairs that values equality despite its elusiveness, that values democracy despite its debasement, that values pluralism despite its messiness, that values the institutions of civic culture despite their flaws, and that values public life as something higher and greater than the sum of all our private lives. The founders of the magazine valued these things—and they valued the immense amount of effort it takes to preserve them from generation to generation.

If such values sound intriguing, or if you like The Atlantic Monthly, you should definitely head out to Harvard Square this evening. Editor Robert Vare will be joined by national correspondents James Fallows and Robert D. Kaplan, as well as former Atlantic editor Cullen Murphy and contributor Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, for a discussion of America's history, identity, and future as expressed in the anthologized Atlantic pieces. Tickets are $5 (buy at Harvard Bookstore or call 617-661-1515), and tickets can be used for a $5 discount off any Harvard Bookstore item for up to a month after the event.

Book image from The American Idea site.