Hays Travelogue

Lewis Lapham, the former editor of Harper’s Magazine, has a new project, Lapham’s Quarterly, a journal in which each issue is devoted to a single question.  The question is then examined by many voices and in many points of view. As Lapham says,

“An acquaintance with history doesn’t pay the rent or predict the outcome of next year’s election, but as the season or occasion requires, it makes possible the revolt against what G.K. Chesterton once called “the arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about”; instills a sense of humor; and brings with it the tray of “examples and warnings” offered by the Roman historian Livy as, “fine things to take as models, base things, rotten through and through, to avoid.”

Volume 1, Number 1 is called States of War. The issue, divided into five sections — Call to Arms, Rules of Engagement, Field Reports, Postmortems, and Essays — begins with this quote by General Helmuth von Moltke: “Perpetual peace is a dream, and not even a beautiful dream, and war is an integral part of God’s ordering of the universe… Without war, the world would become swamped in materialism.”

It ends with a map of the fringe benefits of war: the longbow, the microwave oven, canned good, interstate highways, sideburns, yellow journalism, Switzerland, Canada, Israel, history, Western literature, twenty-four hour news, khaki pants, croissants, and the Red Cross.  In between, are reports from artists, writers, cartographers, list-makers, and correspondents across time and around the world.

A sampling from the correspondents: “Men, this stuff that some sources sling around about America wanting out of this war, not wanting to fight, is a crock of bullshit. Americans love to fight, traditionally. All real Americans love the sting and clash of battle.” –General George Patton

And: “There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one’s own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer by crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn’t, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn’t have to; but if he didn’t want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.” –Joseph Heller, Catch-22

And: “As regard war, the Scythian custom is for every soldier to drink the blood of the first man he kills. The heads of all enemies killed in battle are taken to the king, a head being a sort of ticket by which a soldier is admitted to his share of the loot–no head, no loot.” –Herodutus, the Histories

And: “With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan–to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.” –Abraham Lincoln, Second Inaugural Address

States of War is a riveting and urgent reminder to know our history, because as Cicero said, “Not to know what happened before one was born is always to be a child.”

The topic of the second issue of Lapham’s Quarterly, due out at the end of March, is Money.