title: Giants and Dwarfs: Essays, 1960-1990
author: Allan David Bloom
description: Collected here by University of Chicago professor Bloom (author of the controversial bestseller Closing of the American Mind ) are 19 impressive, previously published essays. Scholarly but accessible to serious, determined general readers are 11 commentaries on Aristophanes, Plato, Rousseau, Swift and Shakespeare, and three on teachers--the influential political theorist Leo Strauss; Raymond Aron, "the last of the liberals"; and Alexandre Kojeve, "the most brilliant man I ever met." The last five essays are on commerce and "culture": Machiavelli and the study of texts, John Rawls's theory of justice, the crisis of liberal education and the democratization of the university. The collection is a notable demonstration of the breadth of Bloom's learning. First serial to Commentary; paperback rights to Touchstone; BOMC alternate. <br />Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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  **Windrider**
  
  
  **Jack McDevitt**
  
  
  The Navigators towered over the desert. Unmoving, enigmatic, ominous, they
  thrust ribbed bowls at the sky. Moonlight filled the bowls, silvered the
  supporting beams and struts, and touched the network of ground rails that
  connected the giants with each other.
  
  
  _They shall be a sign of my promise to you._
  
  
  George hunched forward on his horse. The wind was warm and dry out of the
  north. The breath of the Almighty. "God is good," he said.
  
  
  Marty lowered his cowl, and reached into his saddle bag. He had to push the
  staff aside to get into it. He pulled out a pair of binoculars, pushed the
  staff back into place, and patted Bonker's neck. Then he raised the glasses to
  his eyes. "Amen," he said.
  
  
  There were eighty-three of them, of identical dimensions, each approximately
  ten stories high from its wheeled base to the highest point on the bowl. Most
  of the Navigators pointed in the same direction, toward the southwest, at an
  elevation o