Amazon.com
This mammoth history of the dynasty that created and controls The New York Times is as epic in its scope as is the role of the newspaper in America. Like any good epic, this story is filled with its fair share of personal ambition, disappointment, competing heirs to the throne, fierce loyalties, and powerful intrigue. The story of The Times starts in 1896, when Adolph Ochs, a young German Jew, buys the undistinguished and nearly bankrupt The New-York Times (the dash was later dropped). He worked hard to distinguish its style from the florid journalism that marked rival papers, and soon Ochs's paper, with its straightforward reporting, became the favorite of the Wall Street and Uptown sets. He toiled, too, to ensure that The Times never earned the moniker "too Jewish." Ochs assiduously declined to promote Jewish editors and was an outspoken opponent of the free state of Israel. And writers Susan Tifft and Alex Jones argue persuasively that in its drive to appear absolutely objective about Jewish issues, the paper (under the leadership at this point of Ochs's son-in-law Arthur Hays Sulzberger) underreported the Holocaust--keeping stories of Hitler's early maneuvers off the front page, failing to name concentration-camp victims as Jews. Though significant, World War II was just one moment in the hundred-year-long history of the paper thus far. The Trust vividly chronicles some of the The Times's most famous moments--the controversial publication of the Pentagon Papers and its transition to a publicly held company in the late '60s are just two--along with the personal histories of four generations of Ochses and Sulzbergers. With its strong foundation of well-researched facts, thoughtful analysis, and excellent narration, The Trust is itself a great work of journalism that does its storied subject proud. --Anna Baldwin
Book Description
Through their dynastic control of The New York Times, the Ochses and Sulzbergers have been the most powerful family in twentieth-century America. Not only have they owned the Times for more than a hundred years, but a family member has always been at the paper's helm, a position that has given them enormous influence and has been passed down as a birthright through four generations. Yet by design they have always been intensely private, shunning the visibility their stature inherently commands. The Trust is the first full-scale portrait of this modern monarchy, a dramatic saga set against a backdrop of world events and the burden and privilege of wealth and power. Here is the story of Adolph Ochs, a visionary dedicated to presenting the news objectively, a man who appeared supremely confident yet was often racked by depression and insecurity; of his daughter, Iphigene, an exceptional woman whose gender prevented her from achieving official authority at the Times but who used her position as family matriarch to foster and guard its mystique; of her husband, Arthur Hays Sulzberger, who began his career at the Times as an unpromising son-in-law but went on to become a brilliant and controversial publisher, steering the paper through the crises of World War II, the Holocaust, and the excesses of McCarthyism; of his only son, Punch, who came to the publisher's job with little discernible talent, yet proved tough enough to guide the paper to its greatest journalistic and financial heights; and of the paper's most recent leader, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., who struggles daily with the task of preserving his forebears' values amid the uncertainties of a digital age.
With novelistic drive and detail, The Trust tells the story of how the domestic dramas of one extraordinary clan shaped the pages of the greatest newspaper in the world; of a Jewish family that found itself under attack for its policies from both anti-Semites and Jews alike; of succession battles, human frailty, and tremendous affluence; and of the legacy of public responsibility that has driven the family to serve as devoted stewards of a trust they hold sacred.
The Trust was written with the full cooperation of the Ochses and Sulzbergers and unconditional access to The New York Times' archives, but with the authors retaining complete independence. The result is not only a richly detailed portrait of an American dynasty but a fascinating chronicle of the twentieth century. --This text refers to the hardcover edition of this title
Customer Reviews:
The fall and decline of a family paper.......2005-01-01
It is not surprising that this book's major revelations have not had greater circulation given the nature of family ownership of the vast majority of the biggest media conglomerates in the country, including the massive Gannett holdings of all forms of media all over the world, the enormous Newhouse "out-of-the-shtetl" holdings of not only papers, but magazines, book publishers and electronic media, the Washington Post, and its TV stations, etc., but you would think that some of them would be discussed a bit more than zero. Unknown in the US is any coverage of what the rest of the world classifies as the "Jewish conspiracy" of media dominance in the US. It appears daily in the major media in the Islamic world as the reason for US support of Israel and the reason for jihad against the infidels. It also explains much of French, German and British hatred of the US, long before GW Bush showed up. This book covers some of this, but not much, and is one of the reasons it does not get more stars. But the book has some great insights such as the following.
Did you know that Punch Sulzberger viewed the current publisher, his son "Pinch" Sulzberger's positions on the Vietnam War to be treasonous because his son said he would cheer on the death of an American soldier over a Viet Cong in Vietnam in a face to face fight? Do you know that the majority of the editorial positions at the Times are held by militant homosexuals, and that one of the editorial writers at the Times is married to a member of the Massachusetts Supreme court who cast the deciding vote on the issue of legalizing gay marriage in that state but never revealed his affiliation in his many columns on the issue? (The Times' own ombudsman, Daniel Okrent, recently said that the Times' coverage of homosexual issues has crossed the line from reportage to advocacy.) Do you know that the Times is a "publicly held" company, but the family has prevented any kind of modern corporate governance with its stranglehold on its preferred stock while at the same time the paper screams about corporate transparency at every other corporation in the US? And that is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to "The Trust" that guarantees the succession of the male heir to the throne. A corrupt American version of British primogeniture in kingly succession to the Time's monarchy.
But this book also shows why the Times has become a shadow of its former self, is beset by scandal after scandal such as the Jason Blair forgeries (which occurred after the publication of this book) and has resulted in the gradual decline of a formerly great paper. While newspapers are probably doomed in this century, just as the town criers before them, as they are replaced by the internet and cable television news, you can find out why The New York Times is in its death spiral by reading this book. Unfortunately the authors were reluctant to get into the business consequences of the loss of credibility of publications such as the Times with mainstream Americans, but this is still a very worthwhile book. Unfortunately the billions of dollars sucked out of the unsuspecting shareholder of the Times never gets to read about the corruption and moral bankruptcy of current Times management, but this book would be a good place to start.
Grand and compulsively readable.......2003-02-24
This is a monumental work of multiple biography and institutional history.
It is cumpulsively readable, like a good novel. This book became my trusted companion during many relaxing evening hours and solitary restaurant meals.
It is also admirably crafted. As in their previous book The Patriarch (about the Bingham family of the Louisville Courier-Journal), Tifft and Jones write beautifully and with great skill for handling detail and narrative.
They also have the ability to balance candor and fairness, steering a sober, high-minded course between warts-and-all skepticism and obsequious hagiography. As a reader you sense you are getting a careful portrait of each major character's personality, strengths, foibles, fond traits, and character flaws, while never getting the feeling the authors are doing either a flack job or a hatchet job.
That's not to say certain characters don't come off better than others. For example, the authors seem consistently sympathetic toward the modestly talented, often hapless but usually wise "Punch" Sulzberger, the dominant figure at the Times from the mid 60s through the mid 90s, while casting his wife Carol as a shallow, cold-hearted Nancy Reagan type. But the book rings of truth and authority, and so one generally trusts the authors' assessments.
While this book overwhelmingly is concerned with people, not events, it provides a valuable account of the internal debates over whether and how to publish the Pentagon Papers. It also illustrates the paper's vigorous post-war anti-communism, its cozy relationship with the Eisenhower administration, its internal battles over editorial voice during the political and cultural upheavals of the 1970s, and its generational differences over homosexuality (contrasting Punch's bigotry with his son and successor Arthur Jr.'s determination to make the Times a progressive place for gays to work). Two consistent threads run throughout the book: the Sulzbergers' ambivalence over their Jewish heritage, and their determination to place journalistic excellence and family control of the paper over the business strategems and high profits necessary to please Wall Street.
This book will be of great interest to journalism junkies. But it also commends itself to all lovers of serious biography.
Beside the Times.......2002-11-10
This massive chronicle of the Ochs-Sulzbergers and their stewardship of the New York Times gets off to a fascinating start, dramatizing Adolph Ochs' purchase of the then nothing New-York Times and detailing his wildly successful efforts to build a paper of note.
But once Ochs vanishes from the narrative, bequeathing the editorship to son-in-law Arthur Sulzberger, the book slowly loses steam. Focus shifts from the newsroom to the myriad Ochs-Sulzberger relatives and their beside-the-Times activities, in response to which a reader can only offer a heartfelt shrug.
In defense of The Trust it has been pointed out that the authors set out to write about the family rather than the paper, but apparently there's little of inherent interest in the Ochs-Sulzbergers outside the Times. Down the backstretch, the authors seem as bored as the reader, dutifully recounting the gossipy infighting among far-flung cousins.
The Trust, excellent as much of it is, comes to seem unfortunately conceived -- the newsroom coverage is exemplary, but the beside the Times gossip grows quickly tiresome.
Shame on Alex Jones and Susan Tifft.......2002-03-05
The only positive comment one can make about this sorely disappointing excavation of the Sulzbergers and their newspaper is that it's written in fluid, clear prose. That's it! This is quite surprising given the credentials of these two supposedly fine journalists; they did a wonderful job excavating another newspaper dynasty -- the Binghams. But this time, little insight is offered; instead, the reader is loaded down with gratuitious gossip. Historic and psychological contexts are shabbily rendered. One can't help but wonder if Mr. Jones, who comes from a newspaper dynasty himself, albeit of a much smaller scale, was not dealing -- negatively dealing -- with his own issues in this book. The Sulzbergers, particularly, Arthur jr, a brilliant, progressive, and humane publisher, and deserve better.
The Kennedys of Journalism.......2001-08-28
Tifft and Jones rip the gown off the old Gray Lady to reveal the hidden secrets of the family that made the New York Times the respected powerhouse it is today. The story of the Ochs/Sulzburger clan appeals on two levels. First, it is the story of the making of the newspaper, the ethical and financial decisions required to make the Times both reputable and profitable. And second, it is a good old scandal story, filled with affairs and family altercations, and Times Square palace intrigues. While the book remains superficial about the journalism, it delves deeply into the characters, who are of course the most fun part of the tale.
Average customer rating:
- Felt like a Books and Co. regular customer
- An oral history of independent bookselling...
- Nice little story
- Mixed feelings...
- Self-Centered
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Bookstore: The Life and Times of Jeannette Watson and Books & Co.
Lynne Tillman
Manufacturer: Harcourt
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The Broad Picture: Essays (Broad Picture)
ASIN: 0151004250 |
Amazon.com
Every few years a new book comes along that belongs to a select category one might label "the bookstore bio." Comprising such titles as Old Books, Rare Friends or 84 Charing Cross Road, these few, these happy few biographies are purportedly about the proprietors of a particular store. In reality, however, they are as much about the relationships booklovers forge as they are about books. Certainly this is true of The Bookstore, Lynne Tillman's entertaining history of a New York literary landmark, Books & Co. Founded in 1977 by IBM heiress Jeannette Watson, the shop became a legendary stomping ground for everyone from Woody Allen to Salman Rushdie. When it finally closed its doors in 1997 due to a rent dispute with the Whitney Museum, it was a blow felt by bibliophiles round the world.
Though Books & Co. is gone, its hold on the hearts of its admirers is still strong, and Tillman has had no trouble rounding up a slew of former patrons to sing its praises; the history is punctuated with anecdotes covering the full spectrum of bookstore life. John G. Hanhardt, describing Books & Co.'s philosophy section, remarks "I think of Books & Co. as a curated space," while sales rep Ed Solowitz wryly comments on the store's buying policies: "We don't even want to talk about returns. I tell people, I don't even watch election results because they say 'We're going to the returns.' I get very nervous. Returns, I get very nervous." The likes of Brendan Gill, Fran Liebowitz, Paul Auster, Amy Hempel, Susan Sontag, and many, many more writers and readers weigh in with their memories as well. And weaving in, out, and around these various reminiscences is Watson's personal account of her enterprise from its earliest inception to its final days. Books & Co. will be sorely missed; The Bookstore reminds us of why. --Alix Wilber
Book Description
For twenty years, from 1977 to 1997, Books & Co. was one of the premier independent bookstores in the country. Stocking a wide range of quality fiction and nonfiction, Books & Co. was the kind of bookstore writers and readers dream about: a place where reading was an adventure, where interesting works would always be available, where writers would congregate to share ideas and discuss their writing. Its closing, in a rent dispute with the Whitney Museum of Art, caused a media sensation as readers and book lovers decried the end of a cultural icon. In Bookstore, Lynne Tillman tells the story of this legendary store and its determined founder, Jeannette Watson, with help from the voices of Brendan Gill, Roy Blount Jr., Fran Lebowitz, Calvin Trillin, Susan Sontag, Paul Auster, Simon Schama, Lyn Chase, Susan Cheever, Leila Hadley, J.D. McClatchy, Richard Howard, and many more. And the story goes beyond the walls of the store itself to explore the state of publishing and bookselling in a time when the very landscape of the book world has shifted radically. A fascinating account of business, books, and writerly aspiration, Bookstore is a vital window into a world so many have fantasized about.
Customer Reviews:
Felt like a Books and Co. regular customer.......2003-09-08
I bought this book thinking I would save it to read during one of those rare times that I didn't have anything else to read. That time came sooner than expected, but as I started reading Bookstore, I found that I hadn't given it the credit it deserved. I thoroughly enjoyed reading the twenty year account of Jeannette Watson's bookstore ownership from the time it was just an idea until the day the doors closed forever.
Although, the lack of chapters or any sort of division in content was foreign to me, I loved the way it was put together with words that seemed to come from Jeannette Watson's personal journal (written by Lynne Tillman) as well as quotes from famous authors and regular customers.
By the time I got to the end of the book, I felt like I'd visited the store regularly even though I've never even been to New York City where the store was located. I could almost smell the atmosphere as it was described and as it was decided to close the store, I grieved right along with other customers who saw the closing of the store not only as a personal loss, but a loss for community as well.
Although, I don't condemn the bookstore chains in any way, it's very unfortunate that there isn't room for the independently owned bookstores to survive alongside them. I've always felt that to be true...but even more so after reading Lynne Tillman's Bookstore.
If you've ever dreamed of owning a bookstore, you will love this book as you live vicariously through Jeannette Watson's own dream come true!
An oral history of independent bookselling..........2002-08-12
At its most basic, Lynn Tillman's "Bookstore: The Life and Times of Jeanette Watson" is an oral history of the life cycle of one independent bookstore, in this case Books and Co. in New York. Spanning the mid-'70s to late '90s, the book is a collection of reminscences by booksellers, writers, and patrons of the bookstore intercut with the "memoir" of the store's owner, Jeannette Watson. (In a strange twist, the memoir is written by author Lynn Tillman from interviews held with Ms. Watson, which is a little jarring. Maybe Ms. Watson had an aversion to taking credit for a ghost writer.)
The book chronicles years that marked a decline in independent bookstores around the country. It is fanciful and nostalgic -- anyone who has ever worked in either publishing or a bookstore will appreciate its accuracy and the affectionate tone. It is also full of suggestions for lesser known literary reads; a nice tear out list of 50 of the store's lesser known finds is found at the book's end.
I enjoyed the book without loving it. I'm sure many book lovers will find it a worthy escape from the usual.
Nice little story.......2002-05-19
I always enjoy books about books or bookstores. This one was pretty good.
The writing style was refreshing and did not go into too much useless details about the book business (i.e. financial aspect,etc).
I was amazed at all that was accomplished by Jeannette Watson and thought the book was very interesting.
A great read for all who love to browse bookstores and ever wondered about how they came to be.
Mixed feelings..........2001-11-25
This book is primarily an extensive assemblage of quotes and reminiscences from the various and sundry parties connected with Jeannette Watson and/or Books and Co.
What this book did was give me a crash course into the world of Literature as High Art as defined by the guardians of cosmopolitan New York "high culture." They are indeed an intellectual, highly educated, well-read crowd. Yet I cannot seem to get past the needless pretentiousness and arrogance that inevitably goes along with it. I could make many harsh, critical and obvious observations about Jeannette Watson and how she reveals herself (and is revealed by others) within the pages of Bookstore (other than this one). But instead I'll take the (sort of) high road and say that she comes across as a person who sincerely loves reading and enjoys literature, be it hi-brow, low brow, or anything in between as long as it talks to her, as it were. And that is wonderful.
But the book itself comes across as a self-congratulatory toast to a group of elitists who, for a time, kept the wolves of mainstream pop culture at bay (not that this is in itself bad - mainstream pop culture IS the societal equivalent of cotton candy - good for an occasional snack, but a lousy meal). The irony is, that what did Books and Co. in was another scion of highbrow culture - a New York art museum.
So what are we left with? Probably the loss of a good bookstore that need not have gone out of business had its owner been more financially savvy (another irony in itself). The anecdotes are sometimes interesting, and it is an interesting birds-eye view on how to (in some cases) and how not to (in others) run a bookstore.
Self-Centered.......2001-09-07
Although I enjoyed reading about the arc of a bookstore's life, I thought that this book was self-indulgent and self-centered in its view. A bookstore is a business, not a public service, and it is interesting that all of us here would be damned as the people who put this store out of business by choosing to buy our books from Amazon.com, rather than our local independent store.
Perhaps my view is colored by my day-job, but I think that had Watson worked harder on the "store" half of the bookstore, she might still be in business.
Average customer rating:
- Leafing through snippets of 20th century business history
- excellant historical perspective and research
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The New York Times Century of Business
Floyd Norris , and
Christine Bockelmann
Manufacturer: Mcgraw-Hill
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0071355898 |
Amazon.com
Anyone who likes to spend an occasional afternoon at the public library in front of a microfiche machine pouring over old newspapers and magazines will find The New York Times Century of Business a more convenient and pleasurable diversion. Beginning with J.P. Morgan and concluding with Bill Gates, Floyd Norris, the chief financial correspondent for The Times, and Christine Bockelmann, a former business editor at the paper, have collected and reprinted over 100 of the most important and intriguing business stories that have run in The Times over the last century. The real fun in viewing history this way--especially business history--is the immediacy that's often lost in other retellings. For example, when the markets crashed in 1929, the headline read, "Stocks Collapse in 16,410,030-Share Day," which is followed by the hopeful rejoinder "But Rally at Close Cheers Brokers." The story concludes, "Wall Street was a street of vanished hopes, of curiously silent apprehension and of a sort of paralyzed hypnosis yesterday." The other stories, such as "Dies in Vat of Hot Beer" and "Electronic Computer Flashes Answers, May Speed Engineering" help to make this book irresistible. And, who knows, it might even save you a trip to the library. --Harry C. Edwards
Book Description
Relive the 20th century's pivotal events Now you can capture all the immediacy, balance and insight of The New York Times' reporting across ten momentous decades. From the Model T to the McDonald's hamburger, from the first talking pictures to the Internet, The New York Times Century of Business, by Floyd Norris and Christine Bockelmann, with a foreword by former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker, chronicles for you the economic shifts and boisterous business activity of the past century. You'll follow vital developments in industry, technology, finance and innovation through peace and war in Times headlines, front-page articles, editorials, book reviews, obituaries and unforgettable photos -- and see vividly how major developments of the 20th century have been linked to the inventions, vision and daring, successes and failures of businesses and their leaders, from Henry Ford to Bill Gates.
Customer Reviews:
Leafing through snippets of 20th century business history.......2003-08-28
Economic history or the history of business is often too abstract for the non-specialist reader to take any interest in the subject. This is quite different from the cases of military or art history, for example.
Which is why this book is helpful. No one can seriously consider the history of the twentieth century without looking at the vast transformation of businesses and the marketplace which have taken place in this period.
The 300-odd pages contain photographs and articles from the New York Times which sweep through major epsiodes of twentieth century business including trust busting, the Great Depression, the electronics revolution, and mega-mergers at the close of the century. The articles are accompanied by commentary from the married couple who are the authors, both of whom have been business writers for the New York Times.
Whether you are a student doing research for a high school paper, or a policy maker who wants a quick reminder of the events and forces which have shaped business in this century, you will find this book highly readable and informative. In the introductory words of former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, "Rereading history may never subtitute fully for personal experience in shaping our behavior. But there is something to the admonition of one of the 20th century's leading philosphers, George Santayana, about the importance of understanding the past. And this book surely brings our economic history alive."
excellant historical perspective and research.......1999-11-08
Norris and Bockelmann turn up a winner in this insightful look at business. I have read Norris financial column for years and was always impressed with his "wordsmith" readability. The editors do not get bogged down in technical language but instead have presented a very readable work. A nice Christmas Gift idea.
Book Description
Driven by the engine of economics, globalization has swept across the world and altered the way that governments, institutions, and individuals interact with each other. This process, however, entails far more than an increasingly complex exchange of goods, services, and resources; the motivations and repercussions involved are as much political as economic, as much social as financial, as much cultural as technological. And the move toward a global economy was as much a part of the beginning of the 20th Century as it was at the end.
Through a compilation of more than 400 articles and 100 photos taken from The New York Times, this reference work traces the varied efforts of businesses, governments, regions and individuals to cope with the economic, cultural and personal impact of the world's increasingly complex means of economic interaction.
* Thematic organization outlines the development of key ideas, movements and events
* Articles are arranged chronologically within each thematic section
* Subject indexes let readers quickly pinpoint specific topics
* Byline indexes allow readers to look up the works of individual authors
* Coverage provides a balance of news stories, essays, and editorials
* Articles have been re-typeset for ease of reading
Average customer rating:
- To His Excellency Thomas Jefferson: Letters to a President
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To His Excellency Thomas Jefferson: Letters to a President
Jack McLaughlin , and
Thomas Jefferson
Manufacturer: W W Norton & Co Inc
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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Jefferson, Thomas
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ASIN: 0393030164 |
Customer Reviews:
To His Excellency Thomas Jefferson: Letters to a President.......2002-03-06
Jack McLaughlin has put together a volume dedicated to the letters written to Thomas Jefferson asking for help, money, adoring admiration, or passionately political. Jefferson wrote back or was silent, but he had feelings for all of them whether irritation or callousness, civility or graciousnes. Jefferson wrote letters from earily sunrise till one or two in the afternoon in his later years. He wrote at his writing table up till nine days prior to his death. He had arthritis in his writing hand from older injuries, but if he recieved a civil letter he nonetheless found time to answer it... even if not knowing the person who wrote it.
This book is extreamly valuable to see the American psychi of that time... a looking glass into the past. We see the intellectual and cultural lives of the people who wrote to Jefferson. The letters are fun to read... eaves-dropping on history, peeking into the lives of Americans long forgotten.
All the letters have a strong feeling for the purpose to which they were written, capitvating the reader. I found the book to have a fascinating but charming view into the Jefferson mailbag.
If you want to live history vicariously at its rote basic, what better way than to live it through the letters of the time. And letters seemed to follow Jefferson, as Jefferson wrote many. As the general public of undstinguished Americans wrote, they recorded their thoughts for posterity... it is with a distinct pleasure to relive their lives.
This book is a piece of priceless Americana at its finest, enjoyable to read and it will captivate.
amazon.com
With the detailed expertise of a historian and the insight of a contemporary, Martin Walker presents a narrative of the outgoing American century through individual portraits of 26 of its most influential participants. Beginning with Teddy Roosevelt and concluding with Bill Clinton, Walker's portraits are less biographical than they are temporal; he brings to life particular moments in the 1900s that his subjects helped shape. For example, his narrative of William Boeing traces the history of American aviation from its origins to the present. After World War I, Boeing, Martin, Loughead, Northrop, and Douglas recognized the potential for commercial aviation, and the industry was born. Walker then outlines the shift into aerospace when President Kennedy pledged to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade, and the industry's present contraction into two conglomerates, competing with Europe's Airbus consortium.
Former bureau chief of The Guardian and author of several critically acclaimed books, Walker is a seasoned, skilled writer. His portraits read easily. Averaging 15 pages, they can be read individually or as part of the larger narrative. Each of them illustrates the "primacy of the individual" and the powerful "cult of the winner," unique characteristics of American society that lead the author to consider the 20th century the "American century" and America the cultural, economic, and political world leader. --Bertina Loeffler Sedlack
Book Description
In
America Reborn, journalist and historian Martin Walker defines twentieth-century America through the portraits of twenty-six American individuals whose accomplishments, innovations and ideals propelled the United States to a position of global dominance.
Here are the thoughts and beliefs of politicians and performers, thinkers and doers, capitalists and revolutionaries, immigrants and the native born. From Teddy Roosevelt's imperial ambitions to Bill Clinton's global vision; Emma Goldman’s radical ideals to William F. Buckley's profound conservatism; Albert Einstein's elegant theories to Katharine Hepburn's elegant delivery-the biographical essays that make up this narrative show us the variety of American archetypes and offer a vision of how strong individualism has always been the bedrock of (helped make up) the American character.
Customer Reviews:
Twenty-six heroes, one American century.......2004-01-31
Admittedly, ever since Alexis de Tocqueville wrote "Democracy in America" the bar has been set high for those wishing to dissect and explain the American psyche. Though not aspiring to do any such thing, journalist Martin Walker has come very close to it by encapsulating the essential and enduring features that define the American character.
"I suspect that this book began unconsciously as a love letter to America from a foreigner who sees it both as a second home and as an inspiration." Thus Mr. Walker begins "America Reborn," and what follows is a chronicle of the twentieth century as marked by the lasting footprints of twenty-six larger-than-life Americans.
Beginning with Theodore Roosevelt's ambition and ending with Bill Clinton's new America, "America Reborn" is a sweeping narrative that couples people with their impacts on American life-Roosevelt with ambition, Woodrow Wilson with idealism, William Pershing with the army, and so on. But Mr. Walker knows that there is more to America than politics: his book includes such diverse personalities as Babe Ruth, Duke Ellington, John Steinbeck, Walt Disney, Lucky Luciano, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Katherine Hepburn.
In the end, the book does feel like a "love letter to America." But it is not the kind of love which would blind the author; perhaps, it resembles that of Emma Goldman, one of Mr. Walker's heroes: "the kind of patriotism we represent is the kind which loves America with open eyes. Our relation to America is the same as the relation of a man who loves a woman, who is enchanted by her beauty and yet who cannot be blind to her defects." It this simultaneous love and concern which makes the book both candid and remarkably enjoying.
america reborn.......2003-02-03
An excellent overview of the American century, brought to life through the bios of influential persons and their relations to actual trends and movements in history. Highly entertaining, well written and comprehensive. This should be a high school American history textbook.
On Whose Shoulders We Stand.......2000-11-14
This is one of the most enjoyable as well as one of the most informative books I have read in recent years. Walker's purpose is to "describe and explain the American century through the lives and careers of a handful of individual Americans." He discusses 26, each whom he views as representative of a specific component within the evolution of American civilization. For example, Teddy Roosevelt (Ambition), Emma Goldman (Dissidence), Woodrow Wilson (Idealism), William Boeing (Air Transportation), Lucky Luciano (Crime), Katherine Hepburn (Stardom), and Alan Greenspan (Banking).
One of my favorites of the 22 essays is that which discusses Walt Disney (representative of American Entertainment). Walker first quotes Joseph Nye: "Soft power occurs when one country gets other countries to want what it wants, in contrast with the `hard' or coercive power of ordering others to do what it wants." In response, he suggests that "the essence of America's new global hegemony was that the United States was not only the unique military superpower but also the dominant soft superpower, which [because of Disney's films] invented the world's dreams and defined its aspirations....The Disney Corporation has become the heartland of soft culture's colonial realm. It is unmatched in pillaging there cultures of others to repackage them in Disney's universal vocabulary....[Disney] aimed for what he once described as `that deathless, ageless, absolutely primitive remnant of something in every world-wracked human being which makes us play with children's toys and laugh without self-consciousness at silly things....You know, the Mickey in us'." These brief excerpts correctly indicate Walker's highly subjective and yet circumspect perspective on 22 quite unique Americans. I have already mentioned eight. The others are "Black Jack" Pershing, Henry Ford, Babe Ruth, Duke Ellington, Winston Churchill, Frank Lloyd Wright, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Walter Reuther, John Steinbeck, Albert Einstein, George Marshall, William F. Buckley, Jr., Richard Bissell, Billy Graham, Richard Nixon, Martin Luther King, Jr., Betty Friedan, and Bill Clinton. If your desire is to understand America in the 20th century, I cannot think of another combination of lives and careers which will contribute more to that understanding than do those whom Walker discusses with eloquence and insight in this remarkable volume.
wish I'd been taught history this way.......2000-09-20
I was given this book as a July 4 present, took it on vacation, and when I'd finished a stack of my usual mysteries, picked it up and began to read. And American history just began to come alive before my eyes. Here were real people, with amazing stories, and details about what had really happened. I'd vaguely heard of Emma Goldman, but to read about her trying prostitution to get the money to buy guns was a revelation, and so was the way Billy Graham heard the Lord's call on a golf course. It's a book about a really fascinating bunch of Americans, brilliantly told. It even made me feel better about voting (twice) for Bill Clinton. Funny, I'd never thought of him as a historic personage before. I just wish I'd been taught history this way when I was younger.
An exceptional, unique chronicle of daily life in America........2000-09-09
This chronicle of the 20th century uses over twenty lives as a foundation for examining cultural trends, social issues, and daily life in America. Participants featured herein include presidents, artists, entertainers, soldiers, criminals an numberous others drawn from all walks of life. The diversity of social and economic stratas makes for an exceptional presentation.
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