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Be Sure to Flag Flagg
Historian and Ricochetian Flagg Taylor has just started a marvelous new podcast, “Enduring Interest.” His subject on each episode: A book of permanent value that has become overlooked or forgotten. In this first episode, Flagg talks with fellow historian Jacob Howland about Yevgeny Zamyatin’s “We,” the 1920 novel that was suppressed in Russia then smuggled to the West, in where it was published in 1924.
Flagg won’t quit until we all know as much as he does, which means this wonderful new podcast will be around for a good long time to come.
Thanks Peter!! My historian friends wouldn’t want me. I’m a lowly political scientist (trained as one at least). I would welcome suggestions for books that fit this description: forgotten, neglected, overlooked, often-cited but seldom read. The plan is also to group episodes around a theme. The first theme is totalitarianism and ideology. I’ve recorded episodes on Raymond Aron’s Opium of the Intellectuals, Francois Furet’s The Passion of an Illusion, 3 plays by Vaclav Havel, and some poems by Czeslaw Milosz. Future themes: American constitutionalism, education, race and culture.
Flag him? Why, did he already violate the CoC?
My sheer existence is a violation.
I don’t have a book to suggest, but wish I knew of one that told about the relationship of the Napoleonic Reforms of the early 19th century to the Progressive Movement that came later in the century (and which is still with us today). Do you have anything on that?
I actually read “We” in my youth. I will definitely listen and, yes, it is a book that should be read along with 1984, Animal Farm, Brave New World.
Don’t overlook Milo Hasting’s City of Endless Night, published in 1919. It’s not just a fascinating dystopia. It is also, I think, the first use of the phrase “Second World War” as a proper noun.
Thanks.
If you’re doing interviews, interview Michael Paulsen on Marbury.
Sorry, I can only think of Col. Flagg from MASH.
Excellent podcast. I thought the book “We” would make a great TV series. If they can get 4 seasons, out of the “Handmaiden’s Tail”, they could get just as much out of “We”.
Do you have any idea how (hopefully accidentally) sexist that was?
Tail?
C’mon, man!
Hopefully it was one of those Fordian slips, where you say one thing but mean your mother…
No.
Its my distaste for Margret Atwood. She’s only a best selling author because she’s required reading in middle school.
Well in that case it was ironically humorous.
And/or humorously ironic.
I did read Handmaid’s Tale many moons ago. At the end I felt unsatisfied. That’s the best word I can come up with. It didn’t hang together, make sense, etc. There were a few ideas on how the dystopia comes to be that worked but then it devolves into propaganda. Really amazing someone can come up with 4 seasons.
Just listened. Great interview. Makes me want to read the book again which is the whole point I believe.
I haven’t read it, not only because it sounds tedious, but the premise just seemed too unbelievable even for a suspension of disbelief.
What many people seem to overlook in situations like this, is jumping on the “sexist” bandwagon etc, without thinking that maybe, just maybe, if the situation were reversed, it would be just the same: if most men were sterile, the “good” ones would be kept in storage somewhere, or something.
The thing that irritates me the most about “Canada Clubism” that holds Margret Atwood at the pinnacle of Canadian Literature, is that the novel isnt that good but mostly its not about Canada. It was written as an attack on the Christian Coalition and Silent Majority types that helped elect Ronald Reagan. It’s just a straw man attack on the American Right.
IF she really wanted to write a ‘dangerous’ book about women’s rights and empowerment, she would have set it in present day (late 70s early 80s) Iran or Saudi. Not in a future dystopia christian America.
Happened on Sliders once. (Well, not exactly. I think most of the men were dead, not sterile.)
A series on Supreme Court decisions that should be better known would be fun! Marbury doesn’t really fit that category though…
Thank you!! That is indeed the point!
Paulsen says it fits. Often cited, seldom read. What it actually says is neglected and forgotten.
White. Check. Male check. You’re right, your sheer existence is a violation. Check your privilege early and often!