the acquisition of knowledge itself are tornremain apart from both religious and politicalrnauthority.” I have read, studied,rnand taught this play many times withoutrnever coming within miles of this conclusion.rnIn fact, the chorus concludes thatrncivilization (the city) can only survive ifrnman “fulfills [or “threads together” —rnthere is a textual problem] the laws of thernland (or the earth) and the sworn justicernof the gods.” Not exactly a manifesto forrntheACLU.rnOne of the really vexing problems ofrnAntigone is why a mere slip of a girlrnshould choose to defy her uncle, thernruler, and burv a brother who had, afterrnall, waged war on his own city. Hansonrnand Heath summarize Creon’s abuse ofrnpower, in refusing to allow the burial ofrnthe dead Polvnices, as “the tyranny of thernstate over the individual, the mindlessrnchauvinism of a male supremacist.”rnUnfortunately, Antigone is not acting asrnan individual but as the sole survivingrnheir of a family that has been wiped out.rnAs Mary Lefkowitz has pointed out,rnAntigone is no feminist, only a faithfulrnsister carr)’ing out a familial duty. This isrna subject that has been well elucidatedrnby the pedants that Hanson and Heathrnseem to slight in their account of theirrnprofession. The superficiality of thernanalysis is all the more to be deploredrnsince Victor Davis Hanson, at least, hasrnmade a genuine contribution to our understandingrnof Greek democracy.rnIn analyzing critics of higher education,rnthe authors several times make lightrnof conservaties without giving any signrnof having read anyone to the right ofrnRoger Kimball or Allan Bloom. PaulrnGottfried, Jacob Neusner, and een fellowrnclassicist E. Ghrishan Kopff are simplyrnnot on their radar screen. Despiternthese flaws. Who Killed Homer? is an importantrnbook. The authors raise the seriousrnquestions and do not shrink from offeringrnsolutions. They are sure to bernattacked (or, what is worse, ignored) bvrnall the right people: union shop literaryrncritics who stigmatize their critique asrnone of the “premature obituaries forrnHomer and for classical education, thisrntime promulgated by distinguished APArnmembers who don’t like the work thatrnother APA members are doing,” and byrnconservatives who would prefer to railrnagainst mulHculturalism without, first,rnacquiring any culture of their own.rnThomas Fleming is the editor ofrnChronicles.rnCry, the BelovedrnCommunityrnby Paul GottfriedrnSomeone Else’s House: America’srnUnfinished Struggle for Integrationrnby Tamar JacobyrnNew York: The Free Press;rn613 pp., $30.00rnFrom the rave reviews in the WallrnStreet journal and other vehicles ofrnlow-octane conservatism, it seems thatrnTamar Jacoby has produced a work forrnthe ages. Like earlier marvels by DineshrnD’Souza, John J. Miller, and FrancisrnFukuyama, this study was made possiblernby funds flowing from neocon foundations,rna gesture thoughtfully repaid byrnthe recitation of the prescribed historicalrnviews. In accordance with the authorizedrn ersion, we are told that the UnitedrnStates until the 1960’s wallowed in racialrninjustice, but then came the federalrngovernment and liberals Martin LutherrnKing, Jr., Bayard Rustin, HubertrnHumphrey, and Lyndon Johnson to raisernthe collective moral consciousness.rnThough the later civil rights movementrnaggravated “black rage” and “whiternracism” (terms revealingU’ juxtaposedrnthroughout the book), the conceptrnof racial equality expounded by Kingrnsupposedly holds the ke’ to racial reconciliation.rnThis visionary focus comesrnthrough unmistakably in Jacoby’s 600-rnpage narrative, tracing American race relationsrnback to the beginning of the centur-rnwhile examining the situation inrnNew York, Detroit, and Atlanta in particular.rnIn this survey of what is depicted asrnmostly white cruelty to blacks, we arernreminded of King’s invocation in arnspeech in 1957 of a multiracial Americarngathered together in one “beloved communitv.”rnJacoby’s idea of two divergent civilrnrights movements is overstated. Alreadyrnin the 1960’s, King, among other blackrn”integrationists,” was calling for stringentrnracial quotas in both private and publicrnemployment and for reparations to bernpaid to blacks by white Americans. Suchrnconcessions were thought to be fullyrnconsistent with a “beloved community”rnthat would include a once victimizedrnblack race entitled to temporary privilege.rnAnd if there were in fact hvo contradictoryrncivil rights movements, it mayrnbe assumed there would be legions ofrncivil rights spokesmen and activists conspicuouslyrnleaving a movement whichrnthey believed had betrayed their ideals.rnDefections of this type did take place inrnthe communist and Nazi movements,rnbut, with very few exceptions, they didrnnot occur in American civil rights politicsrnfrom the 60’s onward. Jacoby praisesrnAndrew Young for renewing King’srnintegrationist vision while seeking thernGeorgia governorship in 1990, and shernattributes Young’s defeat in the Democraticrnrunoff with the present governor,rnZell Miller, to “racial clannishness.” ButrnMiller was and remains both an explicitrnadvocate of racial quotas and a critic ofrnthe Confederate battle flag, which Jacobyrnregards as a hate symbol. Not surprisingly,rnthe “integrationist” Young hasrnbeen equally zealous in embracing bothrnof these positions.rnAlthough Jacoby and her promotersrnbelieve that she holds independent opinionsrnabout black civil rights issues, it isrnhard to understand this claim. Despiternher widely publicized ties to a selfdescribedrnlibertarian foundation, thernManliattan Institute for Policy Research,rnJacoby has much good to say about LBJ’srnGreat Society. What she does findrnwrong with this costly and coercive “initiative”rnis that it did not go far enough: itrnwas “only a beginning of the effort thatrnwould be necessary to make integrationrnpossible! for the poorest black.” Andrnwhile she weakly criticizes affirmative actionrnas “a Band-Aid on the cancer ofrnblack underdevelopment,” she characteristicallyrnproposes her own wish list ofrnremedial policies. An examination ofrnthis list in the last chapter proves the obvious,rnnamely, the lack of any strikingrndiscrepancy behveen what Jacoby wantsrnand what public administration is currentlyrndoing to solve racial problems.rnDespite the repeated complaint that thernstate may have tried too much too soon,rnit is not clear what Jacoby would haverndone differently, save to centralize publicrneducation more thoroughly in orderrnto avoid the anti-Semitic black nationalismrnthat engulfed predominantly blackrnneighborhood schools in Brooklyn in thernlate 60’s.rnOne place where Jacoby tips her ideologicalrnhand is her commentary on thernNew York mayoral race of 1973. Herernshe vividly contrasts the idealistic liberalrnvictor, John V. Lindsay, to his Conserva-rnNOVEMBER 1998/29rnrnrn