NOVEMBER 1999 \| Volume 284 No. 5
	Fame: The Power and Cost of a Fantasy The daughter of Erik Erikson, herself a therapist, has struggled for years "to understand the emotional intensity that is associated with fame." We imagine, she writes, that our heroes have transcended the adversities of the human condition. We want to believe that they have arrived at a secure place of self-approval. "But the truth is," she concludes in a deeply personal essay, "that the security of the self is never stable." by Sue Erikson Bloland
The Wrong Man Since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty, in 1976, more than eighty death-row inmates have been freed, their convictions overturned by evidence of innocence. We have no way of knowing if any innocent people have been put to death. We do know this: the likelihood of mistakes is growing. by Alan Berlow

Reports

Notes & Comment:
Factor Analysis
More and more social behaviors are being linked to some sort of "factor." A science is born.
by Cullen Murphy

Foreign Affairs:
Did Braveheart Die for Devolution?
The Scots may have won a new measure of self-government, but defining the term "Scotland" isn't any easier.
by Geoffrey Wheatcroft

Economics:
Euroland, Open for Business
Europe's monetary union is at last becoming a reality, and it is hard to see what could pull it apart.
by Robert A. Levine

Fiction & Poetry

After Auschwitz
A poem
by Yehuda Amichai
translated by Chana Bloch and Chana Kronfeld

Love Nips of the Boa
A poem
by Laurence Lieberman

Passengers
A short story
by Julie Schumacher

Small Airport in Brazil
A poem
by Lloyd Schwartz

Date Line
A drawing
by Guy Billout

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Arts & Leisure

Travel:
India's Grand Trunk Road
Our correspondent travels along the historic highway that spans northern India.
by Jeffrey Tayler

Music:
A New Horn
David Monette makes what may be the best (and quirkiest) trumpets in the world.
by Carl Vigeland

Sport:
On Cannon Cliff
A crag in New England offers short climbing routes as challenging as anything to be found on the world's most notorious faces.
by Andrew Todhunter

Books

Forgotten Heroes of Freedom
Runaway Slaves: Rebels on the Plantation, by John Hope Franklin and Loren Sweninger
by Leon F. Litwack

Phony Science Wars
The Social Construction of What?, by Ian Hacking
by Richard Rorty

Soft-Boiled
A look at fictional detectives.
by Stephen Budiansky

Brief Reviews
by Phoebe-Lou Adams

Other Departments

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Contributors

Letters
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The November Almanac

The Puzzler
by Emily Cox & Henry Rathvon

Word Court
by Barbara Wallraff