LITMIR.BIZ

Studs Terkel was an American icon who had no use for America’s cult of celebrity. He was a leftist who valued human beings over political dogma. In scores of books and thousands of radio and television broadcasts, Studs paid attention – and respect – to “ordinary” human beings of all classes and colors, as they talked about their lives as workers, dreamers, survivors. Alan Wieder’s Studs Terkel: Politics, Culture, But Mostly Conversation is the first comprehensive book about this man. Drawing from over one hundred interviews of people who knew and worked with Studs, Alan Wieder creates a multi-dimensional portrait of a run-of-the-mill guy from Chicago who, in public life, became an acclaimed author and raconteur, while managing, in his private life, to remain a mensch. We see Studs, the eminent oral historian, the inveterate and selfless supporter of radical causes, especially civil rights. We see the actor, the writer, the radio host, the jazz lover, whose early work in television earned him a notorious place on the McCarthy blacklist. We also see Studs the family man and devoted husband to his adored wife, Ida. Studs Terkel: Politics, Culture, But Mostly Conversation allows us to realize the importance of reaching through our own daily realities – increasingly clogged with disembodied, impersonal interaction – to find value in actual face-time with real humans. Wieder’s book also shows us why such contact might be crucial to those of us in movements rising up against global tyranny and injustice. The book is simply the best introduction available to this remarkable man. Reading it will lead people to Terkel’s enormous body of work, with benefits they will cherish throughout their lives.

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Ruth First and Joe Slovo, husband and wife, were leaders of thewar to end apartheid in South Africa. Communists, scholars, parents,and uncompromising militants, they were the perfect enemiesfor the white police state. Together they were swept up in thegrowing resistance to apartheid, and together they experiencedrepression and exile. Their contributions to the liberation struggle,as individuals and as a couple, are undeniable. Ruth agitatedtirelessly for the overthrow of apartheid, first in South Africa andthen from abroad, and Joe directed much of the armed strugglecarried out by the famous Umkhonto we Sizwe. Only one of them,however, would survive to see the fall of the old regime and thefounding of a new, democratic South Africa.This book, the first extended biography of Ruth First and JoeSlovo, is a remarkable account of one couple and the revolutionarymoment in which they lived. Alan Wieder’s deeply researchedwork draws on the usual primary and secondary sources but alsoan extensive oral history that he has collected over many years.By weaving the documentary record together with personal interviews,Wieder portrays the complexities and contradictions of thisextraordinary couple and their efforts to navigate a time of greattension, upheaval, and revolutionary hope.

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