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Author: Alexandra Villard de Borchgrave
Publisher: Plunkett Lake Press
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 232
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Book Description
Born Heinrich Hilgard in Bavaria, Henry Villard (1835-1900) emigrated to the United States at age 18 after a disagreement with his father, penniless, not speaking a word of English and without his parents’ knowledge. Within five years, he had mastered the English language and was covering the events of the day for the nation’s top newspapers. Villard reported firsthand on the Lincoln-Douglas debates and from the front lines of the Civil War, filed graphic, hard-hitting reports that earned him the admiration of the newspaper community. His circle of acquaintances included President Lincoln, General Grant, and the famed abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, whose daughter Villard married. When the Civil War ended, Villard’s penchant for risk-taking and adventure and his uncanny business acumen led him to become a restless innovator, breaking new ground in many areas. In journalism, he launched the first news syndicate in the United States; in the world of finance, he was a pioneer of venture capitalism and one of the first to employ the leveraged buyout. He catapulted himself into the presidency of the Northern Pacific Railroad and shared with Thomas Edison the vision of an electrified nation. His investment in Edison’s electrical enterprises paved the way for Villard to mastermind the consolidation of what is now known as the General Electric Company. In 1883, triumphantly driving the last spike himself, he completed the nation’s second transcontinental railroad. Later that year a financial panic nearly ruined him, but within a few years he made a phenomenal comeback based on his faith in Edison and the future of electricity. Drawing on unpublished letters, Henry Villard’s German and English memoirs, and other sources, this biography vividly recreates Villard’s times and tells the rags-to-riches story of a German immigrant who made major contributions to his adopted homeland. “[Villard’s] story is worth telling and in this biography it is told well.” — The Economist “The account here of young Henry’s ghastly first year as an immigrant is terrific, as good a piece of American biography as I’ve read. In general, you come away from the book with a much clearer idea of the Civil War as opportunity, not merely disaster, and as the watershed in U.S. history... Villard was an attractive character: optimistic, generous, affectionate. His attitudes toward slavery and female emancipation need cause his great-granddaughter no blush... [B]ecause we have so much information about Henry Villard [...] he comes alive for us as no other businessman of his age.” — James Buchan, The Observer “In their well-crafted biography, Alexandra Villard de Borchgrave and John Cullen lovingly recount the meteoritic rise of one of the nineteenth century’s most unsung business ‘titans,’ Henry Villard.” — Ryan J. Carey, Harvard Business School’s Business History Review “An insightful, lively and much-needed biography...” — John M. Lindley, Ramsey County History “Henry Villard is a name not widely known today, but a century ago this would not have been the case. Alexandra de Borchgrave’s and John Cullen’s biography of her greatgrandfather’s rise from penniless and prospectless young German immigrant to prominence and wealth has the fast pace and rich detail of a good novel and the meticulous research of a good history.” — Dr. Henry A. Kissinger “Henry Villard’s great-granddaughter Alexandra de Borchgrave and John Cullen have brought us a fascinating, brisk, and judicious life of one of the most intriguing figures in American history. Villard is the story not only of one man’s heroic enterprise, but also of Abraham Lincoln, William Lloyd Garrison, and the Civil War, the rise of railroads, the contradictions of the Gilded Age, and New York’s arrival as a world-class city.” — Michael Beschloss, historian “A spruce, engaging account of the life and services of one of the great public and private figures of our time. Anyone engaged with New York and American values in the past century should certainly read it. It will be time admirably spent.” — John Kenneth Galbraith, professor of economics, Harvard University “A remarkable, illuminating portrait of one of the great figures of New York history. Superbly told. An important adjunct to the library of anyone who is interested in the history of New York City.” — George Plimpton, author; editor of The Paris Review “The stirring saga of a truly remarkable man who enthusiastically embraced the challenges of his turbulent century. Immigrant, journalist, explorer, war correspondent, entrepreneur, tycoon, and visionary — Villard’s boundless energy, adventurous spirit, and courage in the face of adversity are an inspiration.” — Brian C. Pohanka, Civil War author and consultant to Time-Life Books’ The Civil War “Alexandra de Borchgrave and John Cullen at last do justice to a forgotten giant of American journalism and finance. A Civil War correspondent who invented the news syndicate and knew and was admired by President Lincoln, he then entered the world of finance to tussle with the likes of J. P. Morgan in the building of American railroads, and the founding of what became General Electric. Almost ruined in the panic of 1883, he returned to rebuild his empire and regain his place both in business and society. It’s a great addition to the story of America.” — Walter B. Wriston, former chairman, Citicorp
Author: Alexandra Villard de Borchgrave
Publisher: Plunkett Lake Press
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 232
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Book Description
Born Heinrich Hilgard in Bavaria, Henry Villard (1835-1900) emigrated to the United States at age 18 after a disagreement with his father, penniless, not speaking a word of English and without his parents’ knowledge. Within five years, he had mastered the English language and was covering the events of the day for the nation’s top newspapers. Villard reported firsthand on the Lincoln-Douglas debates and from the front lines of the Civil War, filed graphic, hard-hitting reports that earned him the admiration of the newspaper community. His circle of acquaintances included President Lincoln, General Grant, and the famed abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, whose daughter Villard married. When the Civil War ended, Villard’s penchant for risk-taking and adventure and his uncanny business acumen led him to become a restless innovator, breaking new ground in many areas. In journalism, he launched the first news syndicate in the United States; in the world of finance, he was a pioneer of venture capitalism and one of the first to employ the leveraged buyout. He catapulted himself into the presidency of the Northern Pacific Railroad and shared with Thomas Edison the vision of an electrified nation. His investment in Edison’s electrical enterprises paved the way for Villard to mastermind the consolidation of what is now known as the General Electric Company. In 1883, triumphantly driving the last spike himself, he completed the nation’s second transcontinental railroad. Later that year a financial panic nearly ruined him, but within a few years he made a phenomenal comeback based on his faith in Edison and the future of electricity. Drawing on unpublished letters, Henry Villard’s German and English memoirs, and other sources, this biography vividly recreates Villard’s times and tells the rags-to-riches story of a German immigrant who made major contributions to his adopted homeland. “[Villard’s] story is worth telling and in this biography it is told well.” — The Economist “The account here of young Henry’s ghastly first year as an immigrant is terrific, as good a piece of American biography as I’ve read. In general, you come away from the book with a much clearer idea of the Civil War as opportunity, not merely disaster, and as the watershed in U.S. history... Villard was an attractive character: optimistic, generous, affectionate. His attitudes toward slavery and female emancipation need cause his great-granddaughter no blush... [B]ecause we have so much information about Henry Villard [...] he comes alive for us as no other businessman of his age.” — James Buchan, The Observer “In their well-crafted biography, Alexandra Villard de Borchgrave and John Cullen lovingly recount the meteoritic rise of one of the nineteenth century’s most unsung business ‘titans,’ Henry Villard.” — Ryan J. Carey, Harvard Business School’s Business History Review “An insightful, lively and much-needed biography...” — John M. Lindley, Ramsey County History “Henry Villard is a name not widely known today, but a century ago this would not have been the case. Alexandra de Borchgrave’s and John Cullen’s biography of her greatgrandfather’s rise from penniless and prospectless young German immigrant to prominence and wealth has the fast pace and rich detail of a good novel and the meticulous research of a good history.” — Dr. Henry A. Kissinger “Henry Villard’s great-granddaughter Alexandra de Borchgrave and John Cullen have brought us a fascinating, brisk, and judicious life of one of the most intriguing figures in American history. Villard is the story not only of one man’s heroic enterprise, but also of Abraham Lincoln, William Lloyd Garrison, and the Civil War, the rise of railroads, the contradictions of the Gilded Age, and New York’s arrival as a world-class city.” — Michael Beschloss, historian “A spruce, engaging account of the life and services of one of the great public and private figures of our time. Anyone engaged with New York and American values in the past century should certainly read it. It will be time admirably spent.” — John Kenneth Galbraith, professor of economics, Harvard University “A remarkable, illuminating portrait of one of the great figures of New York history. Superbly told. An important adjunct to the library of anyone who is interested in the history of New York City.” — George Plimpton, author; editor of The Paris Review “The stirring saga of a truly remarkable man who enthusiastically embraced the challenges of his turbulent century. Immigrant, journalist, explorer, war correspondent, entrepreneur, tycoon, and visionary — Villard’s boundless energy, adventurous spirit, and courage in the face of adversity are an inspiration.” — Brian C. Pohanka, Civil War author and consultant to Time-Life Books’ The Civil War “Alexandra de Borchgrave and John Cullen at last do justice to a forgotten giant of American journalism and finance. A Civil War correspondent who invented the news syndicate and knew and was admired by President Lincoln, he then entered the world of finance to tussle with the likes of J. P. Morgan in the building of American railroads, and the founding of what became General Electric. Almost ruined in the panic of 1883, he returned to rebuild his empire and regain his place both in business and society. It’s a great addition to the story of America.” — Walter B. Wriston, former chairman, Citicorp
Author: Alexander Benjamin Craghead
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 1625847947
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 208
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Book Description
In 1883, railroad financier Henry Villard brought Portland and the Pacific Northwest their first transcontinental railroad. Earning a reputation for boldness on Wall Street, the war correspondent turned entrepreneur set out to establish Portland as a bourgeoning metropolis. To realize his vision, he hired architects McKim, Mead & White to design a massive passenger station and a first-class hotel. Despite financial panics, lost fortunes and stalled construction, the Portland Hotel opened in 1890 and remained the social heart of the city for sixty years. While the original station was never built, Villard returned as a pivotal benefactor of Union Station, saving its iconic clock tower in the process. Author Alexander Benjamin Craghead tells the story of this Gilded Age patron and the architecture that helped shape the city's identity.
Author: Patricia Beard
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 1664175423
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 328
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Book Description
Set in 1905, against a backdrop of magnificence, excess and corrupting glamour, After the Ball's themes are stunningly fresh: greed and chicanery, flawed love between fathers and sons, and contradictory American attitudes about wealth. Glamorous, cultured and ambitious - but fatally young and naïve - James Hazen Hyde was twenty-three when he inherited the majority shares in the billion-dollar Equitable Life Assurance Society in 1899. Five years later, at the pinnacle of social and financial success, he made a fatal miscalculation, and set in motion the first great Wall Street scandal of the twentieth century. On the last night of January 1905, Hyde gave one of the most fabulous balls of the Gilded Age. Falsely accused of charging the party to his company, he was sucked into a maelstrom of allegations of corporate malfeasance that involved the era's most famous financiers and industrialists. “Wonderfully foreboding...exactly on pitch...a textured and compelling tragedy”—USA Today
Author: Alvin Johnson
Publisher: Plunkett Lake Press
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 339
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Book Description
“This is the story of a long and brilliant career in American education... [Johnson] writes with humor, modesty, and what seems to be total recall, a fascinating report of a useful life.” — Bruce Bliven, The New York Times “Alvin Johnson has written a first-rate life history, but by that fact he has also written a good deal more. For he has told his life in a way that shows how it holds in microcosm all the dominant themes of our American history and society... [Johnson] must have been a bewildering paradox for his more solemn academic colleagues — a Nebraska farmer who knew the dead languages and most of the European living ones, an economist who knew literature and anthropology and the ‘new’ psychology, an original thinker who was at ease in the columns of the New Republic, an irreverent man who refused to follow the latest revolutionary dogmas but was merciless in knocking the sawdust out of the stuffy orthodoxies... [Johnson] can believe in other men because he has a quiet fortress of strength in himself. Lytton Strachey remarked that it is harder to write a good life than to lead one. Alvin Johnson has done both.” — Max Lerner, The American Scholar “This autobiography is remarkable for the long and fruitful span of life which it records, for the rich and varied contents, and for the humor which the author plays upon every chapter... every chapter bears witness to the honesty of the author’s statement: ‘Never in all my life have I given a hoot for personal security.’“ — George M. Stephenson, The American Historical Review “This American success story is refreshingly different from the usual rags-to-riches one. Alvin Johnson is the best kind of man that America produces, and his autobiography, both in the writing and the story that is told, is one of the best books of the year.” — The Providence Journal “It is necessary for any thoughtful American to take Pioneer’s Progress in hand. You can pick it up, lay it down, come back to it at any odd moment, even on the subway, with pleasure and profit. It is as various in content as a good meal.” — Dorothy Canfield Fisher “What you will remember is the Nebraska boy applying his farmbred wisdom and his father’s courage to all the questions that fate tossed his way.” — New York Herald Tribune “Alvin Johnson’s biography ought to be required reading, both here and abroad, for anyone who wants to understand American government, and the American spirit.” — Adolf A. Berle, Jr. “A fine and mellow autobiography by the father of adult education in this country... His book is alive with anecdotes on everything from life on a remote Nebraska farm to pioneering in the field of the social sciences... Education’s man of action, in a self-portrait which is permeated with a homespun charm and humor and invigorated by the character of the man and his impressive influence.” — Kirkus Reviews “This book relates the interesting life story of a great American liberal and intellectual leader... The reader of Pioneer’s Progress is constantly amazed at the versatility of a man who is able to cram so many good works into one lifetime. Yet, his book is written with such simplicity, modesty, and self-deprecating humor that one cannot help but like as well as admire him.” — L. S. Curtis, Journal of Negro History “[A] lively story which the more-or-less-retired president of the New School has written about his activities up to now... a man’s record of his own life... Among the causes which this man helped turn into movements were land reclamation, rescue of scholars from destruction (by Hitler, Mussolini, and the Communists), peace, and racial justice. But adult education is his great consuming passion. Of this the New School for Social Research, whose founding president he was, is living testimony... To Alvin Johnson, all causes — racial justice, peace, better farming and better health, what have you — are one with adult education. One learns by reading, by observing, by arguing, by acting, by interacting with other people... And perhaps this is the important thing about the man; he would not be confined... And it is in the story of the New School that we learn what the man Johnson really is... This man is strictly a public entrepreneur.” — Everett C. Hughes, Commentary Magazine “Despite the sophistication of the higher reaches of learning and academic endeavor that form a large part of Johnson’s story, he never completely leaves the soil, or the West. The Nebraska beginnings so charmingly chronicled in the early part of the book seem tied intimately to later chapters that related his adventures in land reclamation and his theories on sugar beets, Danish farmers, even Montana Indian reservations. All these serve to demonstrate convincingly that the western roots of Alvin Johnson grew deep indeed.” — Carl Ubbelohde, Montana: The Magazine of Western History “All through his long years of active life Alvin Johnson has fought against bigotry and pettiness of spirit. He is always the free spirit who puts reasoned enlightenment and imaginative and creative thinking against academic stuffiness and oppressive intolerance. But he is never satisfied with mere verbal expression; he always seeks to concretize his reactions into living institutions. His autobiography is, therefore, not only a moving and inspiring story of his own spiritual development but also a chronicle of American cultural institutions during the past 50 years.” — Koppel S. Pinson, Jewish Social Studies “One’s first response to Dr. Johnson’s autobiography is of pride: that so useful, so various, and, what one ventures to call so American a life should belong to us... this autobiography, with its spontaneous combination of concepts and concerns, offers most interesting materials for the student of our national development in modern times.” — Louis Filler, The Mississippi Valley Historical Review
Author: Harold Atkins Larrabee
Publisher: Plunkett Lake Press
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 230
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Book Description
“The Battle of Chesapeake Bay was one of the decisive battles of the world. Before it, the creation of the United States of America was possible; after it, it was certain.” — Michael Lewis, The History of the British Navy “On the afternoon of September 5, 1781, off the Capes of Virginia, two and a half hours of cannonading between warships of the British and French navies determined the outcome of the American Revolution. It was the one decisive engagement of the bitter six-year struggle of the thirteen colonies against England, and it could have gone either way. Not many Americans have ever heard of it... Almost no one, at the time, seems to have grasped its full significance. George III called it ‘a drawn battle’; Rear Admiral Thomas Graves, ‘a lively skirmish’; Rear Admiral Sir Samuel Hood, ‘a feeble action’; and George Washington, ‘a partial engagement.’ As modern battles go it was a small affair. Probably less than ten thousand men came under fire on each side, and the total casualties did not exceed six hundred... One of the many paradoxes about the Chesapeake struggle is that one of the greatest naval victories of all time was decisive because it was indecisive. Not a single ship was taken or sunk during the battle itself, although the British were forced to burn one afterwards; and neither admiral was driven from the field. Yet the result was as crushing to the hopes of General Earl Cornwallis as if every British warship had been sent to the bottom. To save his army of seven thousand men, the British fleet had to win control of Chesapeake Bay. This it failed to do. England lost naval supremacy just long enough to insure the winning of American independence. Once the sea-approaches to the Chesapeake were sealed the siege of Yorktown and Cornwallis’s surrender were foregone conclusions.” — Harold A. Larrabee, Introduction to Decision at the Chesapeake “[An] excellent study of the naval battle fought off the Chesapeake on Sept. 5, 1781, between French and English fleets... The account of the battle itself takes up only a small portion of the book, the rest being devoted to the backgrounds of the war, brief biographies of politicians and officers on both sides... the reasons behind Cornwallis’s fatal decision to fortify himself at Yorktown, and to puncturing long-accepted theories as to why France sent ‘foreign aid’ to America. Carefully documented and highly readable, filled with fascinating details of 18th-century naval warfare, the book will appeal to naval buffs ashore and afloat and to all historians of America’s first Civil War.” — Kirkus Reviews “Harold A. Larrabee does [the story of the Yorktown campaign] full justice... his lucid and fast-moving account will interest any one who cares to know the role of sea power in achieving American independence... The author’s treatment of the Yorktown campaign itself is excellent... In discussing the naval operations, Larrabee is at his best... The story is told in all its complexity, yet is never mystifying. It is so clear that the reader can follow it with ease, and so vivid that he feels like an eyewitness of a campaign that in its combination of brilliance and blunder is perennially fascinating.” — William B. Willcox, The Journal of Modern History “Decision at the Chesapeake is a delight. It combines scholarly acumen, scholarly methodology, and a good style — not what is popularly labeled scholarly — with a sense of direction and purpose. The author endeavors to demonstrate, and to my mind does it very well, that the fate of Cornwallis was definitely determined not so much by his own actions but because the British lost control of the sea in early September 1781.” — S. W. Jackman, The William and Mary Quarterly “For the student of sea power this is interesting reading, indeed. It has been written: ‘The Battle of Chesapeake Bay was one of the decisive battles of the world. Before it, the creation of the United States of America was possible; after it, it was certain.’ The author sets out to explore this thesis, and brings together from many sources-some of them obscure-most of what is known about this battle of the American Revolution. War, certainly, can and must be viewed from many perspectives, and the author is not unmindful of this.” — F. A. Baldwin, Naval War College Review “With a keen sense of the dramatic, a strict adherence to fact, and a facile pen, the author has created an outstanding contribution to the naval history of the American Revolution, and has presented another graphic illustration of the importance of sea power in warfare... Dr. Larrabee has written one of the most penetrating accounts of the events leading up to the battle and a vivid word picture of the battle itself. His device of creating a stage, whereon the various ‘Architects of Defeat’ exhibit either their incompetence or their blunders, is a piece of graphic historical writing. There are profiles of George III, and the Lords North, Germain and Sandwich, which clearly expose their fatuous belief that the American Colonies could be conquered with ease; of the Admirals Graves, Hood and Rodney, and the Generals Clinton and Cornwallis, which place them in no favorable light as strategists or tacticians.” — William Bell Clark, The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography
Author: Edmund Morris
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0679644652
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 801
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Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From Pulitzer Prize-winning author Edmund Morris comes a revelatory new biography of Thomas Alva Edison, the most prolific genius in American history. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Time • Publishers Weekly • Kirkus Reviews Although Thomas Alva Edison was the most famous American of his time, and remains an international name today, he is mostly remembered only for the gift of universal electric light. His invention of the first practical incandescent lamp 140 years ago so dazzled the world—already reeling from his invention of the phonograph and dozens of other revolutionary devices—that it cast a shadow over his later achievements. In all, this near-deaf genius (“I haven’t heard a bird sing since I was twelve years old”) patented 1,093 inventions, not including others, such as the X-ray fluoroscope, that he left unlicensed for the benefit of medicine. One of the achievements of this staggering new biography, the first major life of Edison in more than twenty years, is that it portrays the unknown Edison—the philosopher, the futurist, the chemist, the botanist, the wartime defense adviser, the founder of nearly 250 companies—as fully as it deconstructs the Edison of mythological memory. Edmund Morris, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, brings to the task all the interpretive acuity and literary elegance that distinguished his previous biographies of Theodore Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan, and Ludwig van Beethoven. A trained musician, Morris is especially well equipped to recount Edison’s fifty-year obsession with recording technology and his pioneering advances in the synchronization of movies and sound. Morris sweeps aside conspiratorial theories positing an enmity between Edison and Nikola Tesla and presents proof of their mutually admiring, if wary, relationship. Enlightened by seven years of research among the five million pages of original documents preserved in Edison’s huge laboratory at West Orange, New Jersey, and privileged access to family papers still held in trust, Morris is also able to bring his subject to life on the page—the adored yet autocratic and often neglectful husband of two wives and father of six children. If the great man who emerges from it is less a sentimental hero than an overwhelming force of nature, driven onward by compulsive creativity, then Edison is at last getting his biographical due.
Author: Charles R. Geisst
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0471480851
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 354
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Book Description
DEALS OF THE CENTURY Throughout history, mergers and acquisitions have been the major game played on Wall Street. These deals have had far-reaching effects, on the worlds of finance and industry - more than most commentators or financiers are publicly willing to admit. Deals of the Century captures this dynamic moment in history by taking an in-depth look at the most notable merger and acquisition deals of the twentieth of Carnegie Steel in 1901 to the creation of the former AOL Time Warner, renowned business historian and bestselling author Charles Geisst traces the deals that have had the most dramatic impact on the worlds of both finance and industry over the past century. Decade by decade, you'll be introduced to the personalities behind each event, as industries are built, dismantled, and reorganized by "professionals" driven mainly by the profits extracted from the deals themselves. Engaging and informative, Deals of the Century paints an exciting portrait of the incredible M&A journey and illustrates how many of these deals changed the face of business, creating a modern capitalist society that continues to grow.
Author: Larry D. Mansch
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 9780786420261
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 246
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Book Description
"This work utilizes newspaper accounts from across America, journals and diaries of his contemporaries, and correspondence. Lincoln's speeches also appear here as they did in newspapers in 1860 and 1861; crowd reactions and Lincoln's occasional banter with individuals who called out to him are faithfully reproduced, as well"--Provided by publisher.
Author: Matthew Powers
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231557175
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 185
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Book Description
Low pay. Uncertain work prospects. Diminished prestige. Why would anyone still want be a journalist? Drawing on in-depth interviews in France and the United States, Matthew Powers and Sandra Vera-Zambrano explore the ways individuals come to believe that journalism is a worthy pursuit—and how that conviction is managed and sometimes dissolves amid the profession’s ongoing upheavals. For many people, journalism represents a job that is interesting and substantial, with opportunities for expression, a sense of self-fulfillment, and a connection to broader social values. By distilling complex ideas, holding the powerful to account, and revealing hidden realities, journalists play a crucial role in helping audiences make sense of the world. Experiences in the profession, though, are often far more disappointing. Many find themselves doing tasks that bear little relation to what attracted them initially or are frustrated by institutions privileging what sells over what informs. The imbalance between the profession’s economic woes and its social importance threatens to erode individuals’ beliefs that journalism remains a worthwhile pursuit. Powers and Vera-Zambrano emphasize that, as with many seemingly individual choices, social factors—class, gender, education, and race—shape how journalists make sense of their profession and whether or not they remain in it. An in-depth story of one profession under pressure, The Journalist’s Predicament uncovers tensions that also confront other socially important jobs like teaching, nursing, and caretaking.
Author: Joseph P. Lash
Publisher: Plunkett Lake Press
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 493
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Book Description
Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Joseph Lash’s last work is an account of the men and women who helped Roosevelt pull the country out of the Great Depression. When FDR took office in 1933, he set into motion the promise he made when he was first nominated: the New Deal, also called the Roosevelt Revolution, charged the energies and imaginations of some of the most brilliant minds in the country. Lash draws heavily on the private and unpublished papers of Thomas Corcoran and Benjamin Cohen, the two most influential brain trusters of the time, whose policies invigorated the nation and who, independently and together, were driven to promote the social and economic transformations of the thirties. “This ‘new look at the New Deal,’ as the book is subtitled,... [is] a history of New Deal legislation, from the banking bill that recast the Federal Reserve System, on through the Public Utility Holding Company Act, the Wagner Labor Relations Act, the Social Security Bill and the creation of the alphabetocracy that, as Mr. Lash believes, helped to shift control of the American economy from Wall Street to Washington... a dual biography of two young New Deal lawyers, Benjamin V. Cohen and Thomas G. Corcoran... a roster of New Deal players — Adolph A. Berle, William O. Douglas, Marriner Eccles, Jerome Frank, Leon Henderson, Alger Hiss, Harry Hopkins, Harold Ickes, Hugh S. Johnson, James Landis, Max Lowenthal, Isador Lubin, Raymond Moley, Frances Perkins, Joseph Rauh, Samuel I. Rosenman and Rexford G. Tugwell [and] Harvard Law professor (and later Supreme Court Justice) Felix Frankfurter... the ideological struggle that went on between people like Tugwell, who wanted to plan the economy, and those like Frankfurter and Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis, who wanted to break up the trusts and restore freedom to the marketplace. Dealers and Dreamers will be valuable to any reader with certain specific questions about the New Deal in mind.” — Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, New York Times “Dealers and Dreamers is a fascinating, informative book, indispensable for students of the Roosevelt presidency.” — Arthur Schlesinger Jr., The New York Review of Books “The story of how our present-day institutions were created... [Lash’s] excellent exploitation of the papers of both Cohen and Corcoran, plus judicious use of interviews, makes this a valuable work.” — Warren F. Kimball, Los Angeles Times “Joseph P. Lash’s last book is a fitting capstone to a noble career. Dealers and Dreamers is a vivid evocation of an era and a fascinating portrait, written with the skill of a master, of some of the most wonderfully engaging figures of a glorious age in American history. But more than that, it is — like all of Joe Lash’s books, and like Joe Lash’s life itself — a work of the most rare sincerity and integrity. What shines forth from every page — as it shines forth from Mr. Lash’s life — is his unshakable determination to be truthful, honest and scrupulously fair. Joe has always been the standard of integrity to which I tried to hold fast, and this book is a final, triumphant example of the fact that he held that standard high to the last.” — Robert Caro “I found Dealers and Dreamers a veritable treasure trove of historical information about Roosevelt’s Washington. For that reason alone it is an important book.” — Thomas Fleming “Dealers and Dreamers not only reports the achievements and operations of the New Deal, but also the spirit of the participants, a spirit which I think was very much like that which must have existed among the persons who drafted the U.S. Constitution and put it in force — in each case, reflecting the excitement and satisfaction of participating in a successful revolution, not against government but for government.” — Eugene McCarthy “By the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Eleanor and Franklin, this is a fresh and admiring look at the original ‘brain trusters’ (Raymond Moley, Rexford Tugwell, Adolf Berle) and others crucial to the legislated social transformation presided over by Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Depression years. Among the ‘others’ Lash pays particular attention to are Thomas G. Corcoran, ‘the unofficial whip of the New Deal,’ and Benjamin V. Cohen, principal draftsman of several ground-breaking bills sent to Congress. The author describes Cohen as the intellectual coordinator of the New Deal and the keeper of its conscience. Working from Corcoran and Cohen’s private papers, he sheds light on the significance of the Securities Exchange Act, FDR’s court-packing attempt, the 1936 presidential campaign, the effect of the New Deal on black Americans and other issues throughout the decade before Pearl Harbor.” — Publishers Weekly “Lash focuses on two talented technocrats — Benjamin V. Cohen and Thomas C. Corcoran, protégés of Felix Frankfurter, then a professor at Harvard Law School. Though neither had held high office, both played important, frequently pivotal, roles in drafting and ensuring passage of vital New Deal measures like the Securities Exchange Act of 1934... Pragmatists as well as idealists, Cohen and Corcoran viewed politics as the art of the possible. With revolution a decided possibility, they opted for trial-and-error reform as the best means to the end of preserving any vestige of a free-enterprise, constitutional system.” — Kirkus Reviews “Lash has written an absorbing narrative that captures the spirit of those yeasty times when a heady generation of young intellectuals was ready to roll up its sleeves to rescue America.” — R. Frank Saunders, Jr., The Georgia Historical Quarterly “Dealers and Dreamers conveys an unmistakable sense that there was something special about the experience of the generation of lawyers who entered public service in the 1930’s.” — G. Edward White, Harvard Law Review
