Craig Werner’s Reviews > Reporting Civil Rights, Part One: American Journalism 1941-1963 > Status Update

I really like these Library of America anthologies. Is this as good as Reporting Vietnam?

If anything, better, at least in literary terms. Obviously, there were some good writers who went to Nam, but the "literary" types--Mailer, Mary McCarthy, Tom Wolfe--tend to be annoying and, for want of a better word, "cute" when they decide to bless us with their wisdom. (I'll except James Michener's piece on Kent State from that blanket judgment.) The literary voices in the CRM anthologies--Baldwin, Robert Penn Warren, Julian Mayfield--are generally quite a bit more experientially involved with what's happening. You're aware that the RVN we use in class is a boil down of two hardbacks, right? I think one of my summer projects may be going back and re-reading both of them in their entirety.

I was not aware of that, actually; guess I will be adding those to my list as well.

What you are saying about what sort of writers are going where makes sense, in a frustrating sort of way. Vietnam needed more Greenes and fewer Wolfes.

Since we're on the subject of RVN, I was thinking of looking at William Whitfield's New Yorker interview with Eugene Rostow, "Some Questions About the War," as a possible assigned piece for next go 'round.

That makes sense to me. I think we probably need to ramp up the policy material just a bit. Cutting back on the visits will give us the room.