LAPHAM'S QUARTERLY sets the story of the past in the frame of the present. Four times a year the editors seize upon the most urgent question then current in the headlines - foreign war, financial panic, separation of church and state - and find answers to that question from authors whose writings have passed the test of time.
In effect, Lapham seems to believe there is a mass market, or at least a market among intellectuals, for what we historians call "primary sources." It's a daring venture, to say the least. Let's hope it amounts to something. Or if it fails, that it is an interesting failure.
