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| | Reason: Back to the Future: The nostalgic yet progressive appeal of wizards, hobbits, and Jedi knights (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-18) |
 | | When the current generation of American children looks back on the first decade of the 21st century, it is possible that the three names it will most readily recall will be not Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, and George W. Bush but Harry Potter, Frodo Baggins, and Luke (or Anakin) Skywalker. |
 | | To be sure, the forces of Saruman and Sauron are ultimately defeated by the unified efforts of "the four, the free peoples" -- elves, dwarves, Ents (giant, peripatetic, talking trees), and men, to which we must add the fifth free people, the hobbits of the Shire. |
 | | Contributing Editor Michael Valdez Moses is associate professor of English at Duke University and author of The Novel and the Globalization of Culture (Oxford University Press). |
| www.reason.com /0307/cr.mm.back.shtml (4745 words) |
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