A fresh Town & Country comes back to the present

For so many years Town & Country has been a period piece - amusty remnant of not-quite-old money and outmoded sensibilities.

Two things have happened. The magazine got a new editor, RonJavers, who gave Philadelphia magazine a perceptible bite amid itsobligatory floss. And Connoisseur, a sister Hearst magazine, folded;some of its people and ideas, and its subscribers, have beeninherited by Town & Country, which makes a fresh bow with its Aprilnumber.

Javers has not exactly wrought a revolution. The cover story isabout prep schools, and T&C still publishes wedding announcements ofprosperous young white people, who without exception will be known asMr. and Mrs. His Name. But there's a new ripple of energy andinventiveness in the attitudes here: "A Night of Ice and Death" looksback at the Titanic's last hours afloat, culling memories ofsurvivors 80 years later.

In perhaps the most audacious tweak, William Hamilton,cartoonist to the snobs, invents and sketches caricatures of richkinfolk you can rent to establish yourself in social milieus fromLouisville to the Napa Valley. Town & Country bears watching again, and in places, reading. (Oneyear-12 issues, $24. Town & Country, P.O. Box 7180, Red Oak, Iowa51591-2180.)

With American Caucus, the people who produce CongressionalQuarterly Weekly Report will be offering a biweekly tabloid-sizedpackage of public affairs reporting for the general reader. Itsstandard is strict impartiality and objective information. "Thesupply of opinion in Washington already exceeds the nation's demand,"writes editor Chuck Alston. "We'll make it our business to tell youwhat you need to know, not what you need to think."

What you need to know, to judge by the inaugural issue (March30-April 12), is how Congress is facing pressure to vote onabortion-rights legislation, whose passage would trump the SupremeCourt's expected backsliding on Roe vs. Wade. As for Topic A onCapitol Hill, American Caucus offers an explainer about the HouseBank and a profile of "House Detective" Matthew F. McHugh, theupstate New York Democrat who heads the investigation intocheck-kiting. (One year, 26 issues-$36. American Caucus, NTSMarketing, 1616 Main St., Lynchburg, Va. 24504-9975. Or call800-854-9043.)

The novelist and the historian have much to learn, one from theother, according to Shelby Foote, PBS' Civil War historian.

"Whether an event took place in a world now gone to dust,preserved by documents and evaluated by scholarship, or in theimagination, preserved by memory and distilled by the creativeprocess, they both want to tell us how it was." And in his view,"the historian commits the greater wrong . . . by refusing what thenovelist has to offer."

This essay, originally an address at Princeton, appears inMilitary History Quarterly's spring issue. (One year-4 issues, $60.MHQ, P.O. Box 2054, Marion, Ohio 43306-2054. Or call 800-347-6969.)