For as long as one can remember Public Enemy No. 1 was nuclear war, and it was oddly comforting to know that it was there, waiting. The big bad bomb took other menaces out of the picture. Now, though that menace is not really gone, it seems to be. The old Soviet Union no longer bangs its shoes on the table and is broke besides. In the mountain and the sea we may be rediscovering tried and true enemies of the past.
Nuclear winter is replaced by real winter - maybe.
Then too both books are stories of human striving, where everything achieved is difficult and won at great cost. No question that life has gotten a bit soft and convenient lately and plush and fat, especially for Americans. Nearly everyone is working. More people than ever can buy their own homes. Every time Alan Greenspan appears on television millions of mortgage holders redo their loans.