Volume 34, Number 1 · January 29, 1987
Playtime
By Diane Johnson
Cities on a Hill: A Journey Through Contemporary American Cultures
by Frances FitzGerald
Simon and Schuster, 414 pp., $19.95
The title of Frances FitzGerald's new book is taken from John Winthrop's admonition to the Puritans: 'We shall be a City Upon a Hill, the eyes of all people are upon us,' an early example of American self-consciousness. FitzGerald's book is born of the sense we all share of being watched, and, as she points out, of often presenting 'bizarre and comic spectacles to the world,'—but good-naturedly, our excesses of social experiment arising, after all, from our democratic notions and an idea of human perfectibility. This is to put a good face on it. Another impression one might receive from this fascinating book is of a spoiled society far gone in self-indulgence, beyond cooperation and simple community, so that crises (AIDS) can bring only uneasy coalition or discord.
Review, 3260 words
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