This issue begins with two essays dealing with the problems of dealing with intellectual subgroups in American Society--southerners and ethnics. The essay "On the Mind of the Old South and Its Accessibility" by Michael O'Brien is an abridged version of an introduction to a volume he has edited, Critical Discourse in the Old South. The other essay, contributed by Werner Sollors, was presented at the meetings of the Modern Language Association in December, 1981. The essay by Sollors, "Between Consent and Descent: Studying Ethnic Literature in the USA," explores and illuminates some of the problems of too easy categorizations of American and ethnic literatures.

Joyce Appleby concludes the exchange between her and J. G. A. Pocock. The exchange was initiated by her discussion of the historiographical implications of a particular way of writing the history of political theory represented by the work of Quentin Skinner and J. G. A. Pocock. In this issue, David A. Hollinger brings into our historiographical ken the work of the philosopher Richard Rorty in his essay, "The Voice of Intellectual History in the Conversation of Mankind: A Note on Rorty's Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature."

Quentin Anderson reviews Barbara Novack's much discussed book Nature and Culture: American Landscape and Painting, 1825-1875 with particular attention to the classic American writers she seeks to both build upon and incorporate into her interpretation of American painting.

The final item is a report on another conference of interest to intellectual historians. Margaret Jacob reports on a conference (which she helped organize) on "The Origins of Anglo-American Radicalism."

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