Context" ends with a narrative memoir of Trow's experiences working two summers as a guide at the 1964 New York World's Fair. His summary of the Fair: "At the Fair, one could see the world of television impersonating the world of history.” In an obituary for Trow, the novelist and screenwriter Michael Tolkin is quoted as saying that "No Context" is no longer fashionable because "It's not a polemic for change. It's just a cold description of where things are going. There aren't many books that are unafraid to be that negative." In his essay "The Harvard Black Rock Forest," Trow criticizes another mainstream American institution, Harvard University (which he had attended). The Black Rock Forest, 50 miles north of New York City along the Hudson River, had been donated to Harvard as a nature preserve for scientific studies. Trow writes about the Harvard administration's indifference to the property except as a profit opportunity, and its eventual rescue and dedication to educational nature studies. In addition to his nonfiction, Trow also wrote casuals for The New Yorker, many of which were "subtle to the point of unintelligibility", according to Ben Yagoda. Memoir A memoir, My Pilgrim's Progress: Media Studies, 1950–1998, analyzes the cultural world of the United States in the 1950s, at the transitional time when television began to take over American culture. The book is written in a conversational style, sometimes transcribed from audiotapes. Trow "swirls" between pop and mainstream cultural icons, such as Doris Day, Alfred Hitchcock, Elvis Presley, and Dwight D. Eisenhower. The book cover has a photograph of President Eisenhower, whom Trow admired as "the guy of guys". Trow asserts that the models of masculine adulthood presented to his generation by the official mass culture were so out of date or irrelevant that being in/on/with television (and adopting an ironic attitude to one's self) was the only possible choice. Some reviewers were put off by the book's haughtiness, elitism, or repeated statements of authority, e.g. "You'll have to trust me on that one." According to a close friend, Trow was "extremely upset" by the critical reception of Progress. After that, he only published one known article, a critique of television news anchor Dan Rather. Novel Trow's only novel, The City in the Mist, (1984) did not impress critics. They were put off by its minimalist style and lack of plot, narrative momentum or involving characters. The