The New Yorker is one of a number of general-interest magazines published for a sophisticated audience, but in the post-World War II era it occupied an almost unique niche of cultural authority. A self-selecting community of 250,000 readers, who wanted to know how to look and sound cosmopolitan, found in the magazine's pages information about night spots and polo teams. They became conversant with English films, Italian Communism, French wine, the bombing of Bikini Atoll, pret-a-porter and Caribbean holidays.