Ron Unz, Silicon Valley software entrepreneur…has started a new venture: a prodigious online library, featuring works by some 400,000 authors…
A browse…unearths some astringent literary pronouncements…Of the second installment of Marcel Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past, published in French in 1919, the reviewer declared that he was “a little surprised to find any but the professional student of letters reaching more than his first half-dozen pages”…
Unz’s library has plenty of politics, too. Sounding like an Occupy Wall Street manifesto, an 1890 article in The North American Review refers to “gigantic corporations, whose greed and cupidity have extended all over the country, fleecing the poor of millions of dollars.” The author: William McKinley, Republican congressman and future president…
In The Literary Digest, you can find the infamous Poll…on the basis of which it predicted that Alf Landon would trounce President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
“The Periodical Table”, Wilson Quarterly
I cannot thank you enough for making these old magazines available. I’ve already found some articles I had been seeking for years (even my public library, which is excellent, doesn’t have complete runs of all of these magazines)…this researcher and media historian is eternally grateful!…I am the author of five books and many articles, and while I don’t mind old microfilm, it is such a convenience to be able to read some of these magazines in the comfort of my home.
Donna L. Halper (via email), Assoc. Prof. of Communications, Lesley University
Thank you SO much for the work you’re doing with your publications website. This is just fantastic. I learned of it through the J-History group, and have sent the link to my colleagues. What a terrific service you’re providing to historians. I’m writing my dissertation on science journalism in the early Cold War, and will make great use of your website.
Wendy Swanberg (via email), PhD Candidate/Project Assistant, Center for Journalism Ethics, UW-Madison SJMC
While reading a book on the early conservative movement in America, I stumbled across a reference to an article in a magazine that had gone out of print almost 50 years earlier. Since I was living near Washington, D.C. I took a trip to the Library of Congress to see if they had a copy I could read. To my amazement, I merely had to fill out a form, wait about 45 minutes, and I could view the issue in their reading room.
That was in the late 1990s. Today, thanks to Ron Unz, I merely have to click on a URL, wait about 10 seconds, and I can view that same issue from my living room.
“Unz’s Amazing Archive” by Joe Carter, Acton Institute
There’s a new website, Unz.org… featuring scans of several thousand magazines and pulps, three of which feature content written by Dashiell Hammett…Unz.org has posted scans of two of the three reviews Hammett wrote for The Forum and all of those that appeared in 26 issues of The Saturday Review of Literature between 1927 and 1929. Only a handful of these reviews have ever been reprinted.
“Hammett: Book Reviewer” by Don Herron, Up and Down these Mean Streets
I am thrilled to learn about your amazing database! As a researcher and a librarian, I can’t tell you what a wonderful resource this will be. I will promote it widely.
A researcher and academic librarian (via email)
Ron Unz is back, with a new project that is a great service to us all. At Unz.org, he has made available, as free, downloadable PDFs, hundreds of important publications over the past century. These include magazines like The Smart Set (1900-1906) and The American Mercury (1924-1960). You can also find American Renaissance (1990-2011) and one of my favorite publications from the ‘90s, the Rothbard-Rockwell Report (1990-1998), which brought together the eponymous Murray Rothbard and Lew Rockwell as well Paul Gottfried, Sam Francis, Michael Levin, and others.
“Unz.org” by Richard Spencer, Alternative Right
Ron Unz has opened a new site containing thousands of full-text/image magazines (also books, videos, and similar) for people to read freely. We’re still trying to understand how he’s doing this, but check it out; it’s completely amazing.
“Useful and Interesting Links”, Magazine Art
Ron Unz has spent years of time and million$ of his fortune developing the new unz.org web site, an online archive featuring many of the most significant American magazines of the last 100 years. The collection includes a number of classic Hayek articles.
“…new Ron Unz web book & publication archive” Greg Ransom, HayekCenter.org