Lessons from a Dark Time and Other Essays
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5.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
In this rich collection, bestselling author Adam Hochschild has selected and updated over two dozen essays and pieces of reporting from his long career. Threaded through them all is his concern for social justice and the people who have fought for it. The articles here range from a California gun show to a Finnish prison, from a Congolese center for rape victims to the ruins of gulag camps in the Soviet Arctic, from a stroll through construction sites with an ecologically pioneering architect in India to a day on the campaign trail with Nelson Mandela. Hochschild also talks about the writers he loves, from Mark Twain to John McPhee, and explores such far-reaching topics as why so much history is badly written, what bookshelves tell us about their owners, and his front-row seat for the shocking revelation in the 1960s that the CIA had been secretly controlling dozens of supposedly independent organizations.
With the skills of a journalist, the knowledge of a historian, and the heart of an activist, Hochschild shares the stories of people who took a stand against despotism, spoke out against unjust wars and government surveillance, and dared to dream of a better and more just world.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this inconsistent collection of previously published work, historian Hochschild (Spain in Our Hearts: Americans in the Spanish Civil War, 1936 1939) gathers essays concerning various forces of injustice and inhumanity around the world and throughout the ages, in hopes that readers might take solace in the examples of those who fought injustice and sought to transform the world for the better. Most of the book is organized geographically, with sections devoted to Africa, Europe, India, and the U.S., and many of the essays about specific places are stories of Hochschild's travels, as a Fulbright lecturer, journalist, or political organizer. The works are mostly anecdotal and at times disjointed, with Hochschild relaying his observations of telling details to frame his political insights. For instance, in a visit to South Africa's Constitutional Court in Johannesburg, the "ultimate authority in interpreting the post-apartheid constitution," he notes that "the room in which the Court meets is unlike any courtroom I've seen anywhere in the world: a bowl-shaped auditorium, which means that the judges of this high court sit below the audience rather than above it." The technique lends the essays a conversational tone, which can be distracting but is perhaps effective for introducing lessons about a dark time.
