Greetings From a Machine
To the Editor:
Kevin Roose’s review titled “A Robot Wrote This Review” (Dec. 12), on the book “The Age of AI,” was one of the most entertaining I have ever read. I’m guessing that using an artificial intelligence computer program to write part of a review may be a first in the 125-year history of the Book Review.
William A. Teichner
Norton, Mass.
A Nation’s Legacy
To the Editor:
In a Dec. 5 letter responding to Adam Hochschild’s review of “The 1619 Project,” Richard Joffe claims that “when the Constitution was adopted, no one knew that a large demand for Virginia’s excess slaves would arise in what would become the old Southwest — Alabama, Mississippi and points west — because the cotton gin had not yet been invented.”
Yet even without the invention of the cotton gin, it was understood that the value of Virginia’s slaves would rise if the Atlantic slave trade were outlawed. In James Madison’s notes on the deliberation of the Constitution from Aug. 22, 1787, we find: “General Pinckney declared it to be his firm opinion that if himself and all his colleagues were to sign the Constitution and use their personal influence, it would be of no avail towards obtaining the assent of their constituents. South Carolina and Georgia cannot do without slaves. As to Virginia, she will gain by stopping the importations. Her slaves will rise in value, and she has more than she wants. It would be unequal to require South Carolina and Georgia to confederate on such unequal terms.”
In other words, the founding fathers were well aware of the economic advantage to slave owners of limiting the Atlantic slave trade. This awareness informed the discussion of the Constitution. The whole business of the cotton gin is just a distraction to ignore this plain fact. The distraction is done in the service of the pseudo-patriotic mythmaking that informs so much of the objection to “The 1619 Project.”
Jeet Heer
Regina, Saskatchewan
Paving the Way
To the Editor:
Christina Lamb’s excellent review of Judith Mackrell’s “The Correspondents” (Dec. 5) had the deft insight and sense of caring that only a female war correspondent could express. As a London-based journalist, I was in Amman, Jordan, researching my book “The Palestine Problem” during a phase of the civil war in 1971, so Lamb’s review resonated with me. We all took incredible risks as part of the job.
I honor both Lamb and Mackrell for documenting the bravery and genius of the greats like Martha Gellhorn, Lee Miller, Clare Hollingworth and Helen Kirkpatrick, who paved the way for today’s correspondents.
Pamela Ellen Ferguson
Austin, Texas
By the Reread
To the Editor:
It is always a thrill when an author mentions, as Bette Midler did in her By the Book interview (Dec. 5), the Betsy-Tacy series. She even added Tib, indicating that she is a true fan.
Maud Hart Lovelace’s series about three girls growing up in Minnesota at the turn of the century — the series stretches from the late 1890s to the U.S. entry into World War I — might sound hopelessly outdated. However, I continue to marvel (after 30-plus years of rereads) at her treatment of subjects including refugees, friendship, bullying, wealth, inclusiveness, heartache and marital struggles with an insight and humor that belies the age of the books first published in the ’40s. I see them on fewer and fewer bookshop and library shelves and that is our loss.
Kate Reymann
Salt Lake City
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