A request from Sarah Leonard, Editorial Assistant at Dissent (and also Editor of The New Inquiry’s print publication):
“I wanted to tell you about a project that Dissent magazine is undertaking, and ask the kind help of the community of intellectual historians who read and contribute to USIH. You probably know that democracy magazine was a short-lived creature of the early eighties, edited by Sheldon Wolin and Christopher Lasch, that published a brilliant but peculiar brand of Marxist anti-modernism. The issues have gotten a bit hard to find, and have never been digitized, but the ones I’ve read are really excellent.
Because Dissent took over democracy‘s subscriber list and obligations when democracy folded, I’ve started a project here to digitize all the issues (only twelve in all) and make them available on our site. I really fear that these will disappear altogether, or at least not used by researchers, if they aren’t digitally preserved. We’ve scanned the ones we have, but are missing several issues. Do you think some of your intellectual historians might be willing to sacrifice some copies to the cause? The magazines have to be torn up to be scanned, so it is a bit of a sacrifice. I’d really like to see these preserved, and I’m sure some others would too. The missing issues are:
January 1981 (Vol. 1. No. 1)
April 1981 (Vol. 1, No. 2)
January 1982 (Vol. 2, No. 1)
July 1982 (Vol. 2, No. 3)
Fall 1982 (Vol. 2, No. 4)
Winter 1983 (Vol. 3, No. 1)
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This is a good cause. If anyone is willing and able to help, either say so in the comments section, or send me an email and I’ll get you in touch with Sarah. Thanks.
3 Thoughts on this Post
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We have what looks to be a complete run at our library. If no one else has copies to give up, perhaps we can work something out (e.g., we make the scans and send them along).
This is an excellent project! Thanks to Sarah Leonard and Dissent for undertaking it.
(Incidentally, I’ve always assumed that the lower case “d” in the journal’s title was, in part, an homage to Dwight Macdonald’s politics. Can anyone confirm if that was the case?)
Thanks John. I’ll make sure Sarah gets the message.