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Contents

June 10, 2010 • Volume 57, Number 10

LETTERS

Contributors

Freeman Dyson has spent most of his life as a professor of physics at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, taking time off to advise the US government and write books for the general public. He was born in England and worked as a civilian scientist for the Royal Air Force during World War II. He came to Cornell University as a graduate student in 1947 and worked with Hans Bethe and Richard Feynman, producing a user-friendly way to calculate the behavior of atoms and radiation. He also worked on nuclear reactors, solid-state physics, ferromagnetism, astrophysics, and biology, looking for problems where elegant mathematics could be usefully applied.

Dyson’s books include Disturbing the Universe (1979), Weapons and Hope (1984), Infinite in All Directions (1988), Origins of Life (1986, second edition 1999), The Sun, the Genome and the Internet (1999), and A Many-Colored Glass: Reflections on the Place of Life in the Universe (2010). He is a fellow of the American Physical Society, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and a fellow of the Royal Society of London. In 2000 he was awarded the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion.

Peter Beinart is Associate Professor of Journalism and Political Science at the City University of New York, a Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation, and Senior Political Writer for The Daily Beast. His new book, The Icarus Syndrome: A History of American Hubris, will be published in June.
 (June 2010)

Sue Halpern is the editor of NYRB Lit and scholar-in-residence at Middlebury College. Her new book, A Dog Walks into a Nursing Home, will be published in May.
 (March 2013)

Hilton Als is a staff writer for The New Yorker. His first book, *The Women*, a meditation on gender, race, and personal identity, was published in 1996. He was awarded a Guggenheim for Creative Writing in 2000 and the George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism for 2002-03. Als lives in New York City.

Michael Pollan is the John S. and James L. Knight Professor of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma, In Defense of Food, and, most recently, Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual.
 (June 2010)

Michael Dirda, a weekly book columnist for The Washington Post, received the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for criticism. He is the author of the memoir An Open Book and of four collections of essays: Readings, Bound to Please, Book by Book, and Classics for Pleasure. His most recent book, On Conan Doyle, received a 2012 Edgar Award for best critical/biographical work of the year.
 Dirda graduated with Highest Honors in English from Oberlin College and earned a Ph.D. in comparative literature (medieval studies and European romanticism) from Cornell University. He is a contributor to The New York Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement, the online Barnes & Noble Review, and several other periodicals, as well as a frequent lecturer and an occasional college teacher.

Jeff Madrick writes an economics column for Harper’s Magazine, is editor of Challenge Magazine, and is director of the Rediscovering Government Initiative at the Roo­sevelt Institute. His most recent book is Age of Greed: The Triumph of Finance and the Decline of America.

Geoffrey O’Brien is Editor in Chief of the Library of America. His recent works include Early Autumn and The Fall of the House of Walworth. His new book Stolen Glimpses, Captive Shadows: Writing on Film 2002–2012 will be published in 2013.


Robert Gildea is Professor of Modern History at Oxford University. His most recent book is Children of the Revolution: The French, 1799–1914. (June 2010)

Robert Gottlieb’s Great Expectations: The Sons and Daughters of Charles Dickens will be published in November. (November 2012)

Anthony Lewis, a former columnist for The New York Times, has twice won the Pulitzer Prize. His latest book is Freedom for the Thought That We Hate: A Biography of the First Amendment.

Adam Kirsch is a Senior Editor at The New Republic and a Contributing Editor to Tablet. His most recent book is Why Trilling Matters.
 (May 2013)

Benjamin is the New Books columnist for Harper’s and the author of Why This World: A Biography of Clarice Lispector. He lives in the Netherlands. (June 2010)

William Pfaff was an editor of the lay-Catholic Commonweal magazine from 1949 to 1955, and remains a contributor. His latest book is The Irony of Manifest Destiny: The Tragedy of America’s Foreign Policy. (May 2013)

Gordon Wood is the Alva O. Way University Professor and Professor of History Emeritus at Brown. His latest book is The Idea of America: Reflections on the Birth of the United States.

José Manuel Prieto is a novelist and translator. His latest novel is Rex. (May 2011)

Alexander Stille is San Paolo Professor of International Journalism at Columbia. His memoir, The Force of Things: A Marriage in War in Peace, will be published next February. (October 2012)