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Encounter Books is one of the more heartening projects in today’s literary world. Its purpose, according to publisher Peter Collier (himself a distinguished author and activist, and an occasional contributor to this magazine), is to “enlarge the space for ideas in our culture.” With the support of the Bradley Foundation, Encounter is publishing books that are somewhat to the right of the academic mainstream, but express their views in a manner that will not alienate the impartial reader.

Judging by Encounter’s first list— which includes Ward Connerly’s Creating Equal, reviewed in NR’s May 22 issue—there are two ways to fulfill this mandate: sheer entertainment value and sober persuasion. An excellent example of the first is The Long March: How the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s Changed America (326 pp., $23.95), in which culture critic Roger Kimball, author of Tenured Radicals, assembles a plethora of kooky utterances by ’60s leftists.

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Encounter Books is one of the more heartening projects in today’s literary world. Its purpose, according to publisher Peter Collier (himself a distinguished author and activist, and an occasional contributor to this magazine), is to “enlarge the space for ideas in our culture.” With the support of the Bradley Foundation, Encounter is publishing books that are somewhat to the right of the academic mainstream, but express their views in a manner that will not alienate the impartial reader.

Judging by Encounter’s first list— which includes Ward Connerly’s Creating Equal, reviewed in NR’s May 22 issue—there are two ways to fulfill this mandate: sheer entertainment value and sober persuasion. An excellent example of the first is The Long March: How the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s Changed America (326 pp., $23.95), in which culture critic Roger Kimball, author of Tenured Radicals, assembles a plethora of kooky utterances by ’60s leftists.