Despite its low circulation and budget, the Atlantic Monthly magazine has maintained a strong influence in American culture by publishing many of the most prominent authors and cultural authorities and maintaining its status as one of the nation's leading general-interest monthlies. It began the twentieth century as America's foremost elite literary magazine, and although it has embraced a wider readership and broadened its scope to focus on political and social issues, it is still known as a magazine for intellectual and highly cultivated readers. Throughout its history, the Atlantic Monthly has attempted to reconcile its distrust of the masses, or the "mob," to whom it has not wanted to pander, with its need to appeal to a broad spectrum of readers in order to stay financially afloat. It has made the compromise by positioning itself as the setter of standards and the interpreter of culture for...