Mornings on Horseback: The Story of an Extraordinary Family, a Vanished Way of Life and the Unique Child who Became Theodore Roosevelt
David McCullough, 1981
Simon & Schuster
370 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780671447540
Summary
Mornings on Horseback is the brilliant biography of the young Theodore Roosevelt. Hailed as "a masterpiece" (John A. Gable, Newsday), it is the winner of the Los Angeles Times 1981 Book Prize for Biography and the National Book Award for Biography.
Written by David McCullough, the author of Truman, this is the story of a remarkable little boy, seriously handicapped by recurrent and almost fatal asthma attacks, and his struggle to manhood: an amazing metamorphosis seen in the context of the very uncommon household in which he was raised.
The father is the first Theodore Roosevelt, a figure of unbounded energy, enormously attractive and selfless, a god in the eyes of his small, frail namesake. The mother, Mittie Bulloch Roosevelt, is a Southerner and a celebrated beauty, but also considerably more, which the book makes clear as never before. There are sisters Anna and Corinne, brother Elliott (who becomes the father of Eleanor Roosevelt), and the lovely, tragic Alice Lee, TR's first love. All are brought to life to make "a beautifully told story, filled with fresh detail", wrote the New York Times Book Review.
A book to be read on many levels, it is at once an enthralling story, a brilliant social history and a work of important scholarship which does away with several old myths and breaks entirely new ground. It is a book about life intensely lived, about family love and loyalty, about grief and courage, about "blessed" mornings on horseback beneath the wide blue skies of the Badlands. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—July 7, 1933
• Where—Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
• Education—B.A., Yale University
• Awards—National Book Award (twice); Pulitzer Prize (twice); Presidential Medal of Honor
• Currently—lives in Boston, Massachusetts
David McCullough is an American author, narrator, historian, and lecturer. He is a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award and a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States' highest civilian award.
McCullough's first book was The Johnstown Flood (1968), and he has since written nine more on such topics as Harry S. Truman, John Adams, the Brooklyn Bridge, and the Wright Brothers. McCullough has also narrated numerous documentaries, such as The Civil War by Ken Burns, as well as the 2003 film Seabiscuit, and he hosted American Experience for twelve years.
McCullough's two Pulitzer Prize-winning books, Truman (1992) and John Adams (2001), have been adapted by HBO into a TV film and a mini-series, respectively. McCullough's history, The Greater Journey (2011), is about Americans in Paris from the 1830s to the 1900s.
Youth and education
McCullough was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the son of Ruth (nee Rankin) and Christian Hax McCullough. He is of Scots-Irish descent. He was educated at Linden Avenue Grade School and Shady Side Academy, in his hometown of Pittsburgh.
One of four sons, McCullough had a "marvelous" childhood with a wide range of interests, ranging from sports to drawing cartoons. McCullough's parents and his grandmother, who read to him often, introduced him to books at an early age. His parents often talked about history, a topic he says should be discussed more often. McCullough "loved school, every day"; he contemplated many career choices, everything from architect, actor, painter, writer, to lawyer, and contemplated attending medical school for a time.
McCullough attended Yale University, graduating with honors in English in 1955. He considered it a "privilege" to study at Yale because of faculty members such as John O'Hara, John Hersey, Robert Penn Warren, and Brendan Gill. He occasionally ate lunch with the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and playwright Thornton Wilder. Wilder, says McCullough, taught him that a competent writer maintains "an air of freedom" in the storyline, so that a reader will not anticipate the outcome, even if the book is non-fiction.
While at Yale, he became a member of Skull and Bones. He served apprenticeships at Time, Life, the United States Information Agency, and American Heritage, where he enjoyed research. "Once I discovered the endless fascination of doing the research and of doing the writing, I knew I had found what I wanted to do in my life."
Early career
After graduation, McCullough moved to New York City, where Sports Illustrated hired him as a trainee. He later worked as an editor and writer for the United States Information Agency in Washington, D.C. After working for twelve years, including a position at American Heritage, in editing and writing, McCullough reached a point where he believed he "could attempt something" on his own.
Although he had no idea that he would end up writing history, McCullough "stumbled upon" a story that he felt was "powerful, exciting, and very worth telling." After three years of writing in his spare time (while still at American Heritage), he published The Johnstown Flood. The book, a chronicle of one of the worst flood disasters in United States history, was published in 1968 to high praise. John Leonard, of the New York Times, said of McCullough, "We have no better social historian." Despite precarious financial times, but encouraged by his wife Rosalee, he decided to become a full-time writer.
People often ask me if I'm working on a book. That's not how I feel. I feel like I work in a book. It's like putting myself under a spell. And this spell, if you will, is so real to me that if I have to leave my work for a few days, I have to work myself back into the spell when I come back. It's almost like hypnosis.
Recognition
After the success of The Johnstown Flood, two new publishers offered him contracts, one to write about the Great Chicago Fire and another about the San Francisco earthquake. Not wishing to become "Bad News McCullough," he decided to write about people who "were not always foolish and inept or irresponsible." He also remembered Thornton Wilder telling told him that "he got an idea for a book or a play when he wanted to learn about something. Then, he'd check to see if anybody had already done it, and if they hadn't, he'd do it."
McCullough decided to write a history of the Brooklyn Bridge, which he had walked across many times.
To me history ought to be a source of pleasure. It isn't just part of our civic responsibility. To me it's an enlargement of the experience of being alive, just the way literature or art or music is.
Published in 1972, critics hailed The Great Bridge (1972) as "the definitive book on the event."
Five years later, The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal was released, gaining McCullough widespread recognition. The book won the National Book Award in History, the Samuel Eliot Morison Award, the Francis Parkman Prize, and the Cornelius Ryan Award.
In 1977, McCullough traveled to the White House to advise Jimmy Carter and the United States Senate on the Torrijos-Carter Treaties, which would give Panama control of the Canal. Carter later said that the treaties, which were agreed upon to hand over ownership of the Canal to Panama, would not have passed, had it not been for the book.
Other works
McCullough's fourth work was his first biography, reinforcing his belief that "history is the story of people." Released in 1981, Mornings on Horseback tells the story of seventeen years in the life of Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th President of the United States. The work ranged from 1869, when Roosevelt was ten years old, to 1886, and tells of a "life intensely lived." The book won McCullough's second National Book Award, his first Los Angeles Times Prize for Biography, and New York Public Library Literary Lion Award.
Next, he published Brave Companions, a collection of essays written over a period of twenty years. Essays cover historical or literary figures such as Louis Agassiz, Alexander von Humboldt, John and Washington Roebling, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Conrad Aiken, and Frederic Remington.
McCullough's next book, his second biography, Truman (1993), was about the 33rd president. That book won McCullough his first Pulitzer Prize for "Best Biography or Autobiography" and his second Francis Parkman Prize. Two years later, the book was adapted as an HBO television movie by the same name, with Gary Sinise in the role of Truman. Commenting on his subject, Truman said
I think it's important to remember that these men are not perfect. If they were marble gods, what they did wouldn't be so admirable. The more we see the founders as humans the more we can understand them.
Seven years later, in 2001, McCullough published his third biography John Adams, about the life of the second US president. One of the fastest-selling non-fiction books in history, it won McCullough's second Pulitzer Prize for "Best Biography or Autobiography." He intended the book to be about the two founding fathers and back-to-back presidents, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, but he became so intrigued with Adams that he decided to focus on Adams alone. In 2008 HBO adapted the book as a seven-part miniseries by the same name, with Paul Giamatti in the title role.
Published in 2005, McCullough's 1776, tells the story of the founding year of the US, focusing on George Washington, the amateur army, and other struggles for independence. Because of McCullough's popularity, its initial printing was 1.25 million copies, many more than the average history book. Upon its release, the book became a number-one bestseller in the US.
McCullough considered writing a sequel to 1776 but instead wrote about Americans in Paris between 1830 and 1900. The Greater Journey, published in 2011, covers 19th-century Americans, including Mark Twain and Samuel Morse, who migrated to Paris and went on to achieve importance in culture or innovation. Others included in the book are Elihu Washburne, the American ambassador to France during the Franco-Prussian War, and Elizabeth Blackwell, the first female doctor in the US.
Personal life
David McCullough lives in Boston, Massachusetts, and is married to Rosalee Barnes McCullough, whom he met at age 17 in Pittsburgh. The couple has five children and nineteen grandchildren. He enjoys sports, history and art, including watercolor and portrait painting.
His son David Jr., an English teacher at Wellesley High School in the Boston suburbs, achieved sudden fame in 2012 with his commencement speech. He told graduating students, "you're not special" nine times, and his speech went viral on YouTube. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 9/2/2015.)
Book Reviews
I could be wrong, and often am, but I felt throughout Mornings on Horseback that Mr. McCullough wanted to write a book about Mittie and Bamie, and then refrained. The book he has written is excellent—we have no better social historian—but it doesn't address, out loud, that odd conspiracy of women that sabotages the self and encourages the machismo rubbish of a Teddy Roosevelt as he shoots the birds.
John Leonard - New York Times
[McCullough] brings us as close as anyone will ever get to understanding the unique alchemy of the Roosevelt family—and its power to help and hinder Theodore in his rise. It is a measure of the author's talent that one wishes the book were longer. We nw what happened to T.R. after 1886, of course, and a concise afterword sketches the subsequent careers of his siblings. But we want the details—for David McCullough has made us care deeply about every member of this vivid tribe.
Geoffrey C. Ward - New York Times Book Review
A fine account of Roosevelt's rise to manhood, well written and, like its subject, full of irrepressible vitality.
Denver Post
Discussion Questions
1. In 1851, Theodore was sent on a Grand Tour. With a jealous sentiment, Robert critiqued Theodore's pattern of experiences saying, "it [traveling] is not to see scenery, or places," but rather to see and have conversations with men of other cultures to see their points of view. Do you agree with this statement? How do most Americans travel and why? What is your goal when you travel? What would you want your family to take from an experience over seas?
2. In exploring the effect of asthma over Teedie's life and the Roosevelt family, McCullough writes, "For a child as acutely sensitive and intelligent as he, the impact of asthma could not have been anything but profound, affecting personality, outlook self-regard, the whole course of his young life, in marked fashion.... But he knows also that his particular abnormality lends a kind of power." What power is McCullough speaking of? How does Teedie's illness positively affect his life, interests, and ultimate passions and goals? Explain.
3. Teedie was encouraged by his father to build up his body as a way of overcoming his illness. His father says, "Theodore you have the mind, but you have not the body, and without the help of the body the mind cannot go as far as it should.... You must make your body." Do you think this was the correct approach in dealing with Teedie's asthma? What approach would you use in dealing with an asthmatic child? Would you be overprotective, or would you encourage self-sufficiency? Explain.
4. During the Depression, business for the Roosevelts was stagnant and competition was high. As opposed to putting more effort into import trade, the Roosevelt brothers, Theodore and James Alfred, became financers. When Alexander Graham Bell proposed his newly invented telephone, Theodore did not believe it had any real future outside of toys. Explain how Roosevelt could have arrived at this decision. In your lifetime, can you think of new technologies that you wished you had invested in? Discuss.
5. In 1869, Charles W. Eliot was named president of Harvard University. He believed, "to be educated in science was to be educated in the future," and that "science was the firm foundation for man's faith in himself and in the present infinite creator." The Harvard administration's commitment to excellence in Science under Eliot aligned well with Teedie's interests. For a young man so well traveled, when did Teedie gain most from his Harvard education?
6. Theodore, Jr. courted Alice for quite a while before she reluctantly surrendered to his affection. Although, he had many girlfriends and admirers Alice was exceptionally beautiful to him. After marriage, their relationship was as loving and intense as his father and mother. Compare Theodore, Jr. and Alice's relationship with Theodore, Sr. and Mittie. Of Alice's characteristics which of those did Teedie fall most for? In Teedie's upbringing, what did he learn about what's most important in a wife?
7. On a tiger hunt south of Hyderabad in India, Teedie shoots and kills one of the largest tigers ever seen in that area. To his father Teedie writes, "it is the life, old man. Our kind. The glorious freedom, the greatest excitement.... How everything here would have pleased your fondness for the unusual and the dangerous." What does Teedie imply by "our kind"? If you were a Roosevelt, how would you live? What would be the most important aspect of your lifestyle?
8. As a member of the State Assembly at the age of twenty-three, Theodore, Jr. proved to be an irreverent spirit in politics. After meeting Samuel Gompers and learning of the working conditions of cigar makers, Theodore supported the Cigar Makers Bill while simultaneously stepping on the toes of the notorious Jay Gould. What was Theodore's mistake in taking on Gould? How did he inadvertently fashion his political image? How was his polarized sense of right and wrong constructed by his upbringing? Was he wrong in his judgment of "the wealthy criminal class"?
9. Theodore often felt jaded about law as a profession, saying lawyers do not serve justice, they serve their clients; often equating a lawyers career with moneymaking and not with public service. If Theodore had similar sentiments about law, what did he say about politics, especially since he had a similar regard for the political profession? What was Theodore's ultimate goal in politics?
10. After the sudden deaths of Mittie and Alice, Theodore threw himself into his work as a way of compensating for his grief. In Alice's eulogy, he writes, "When my heart's dearest died, the light went out from my life for ever." Explain how he handled this sudden turn of events. How has his experience as an asthmatic prepared him for such fate?
11. Theodore's fascination with The Bad Lands and the romanticized West seemed the perfect antidote for his broken heart. What was it about the West that intrigued him and helped him to deal with life as a widow?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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Secret Diary of a Call Girl
Belle de Jour (Anonymous), 2007
Grand Central Publishing
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780446540827
Summary
Belle couldn't find a job after University. Her impressive degree was not paying her rent or buying her food. But after a fantastic threesome with a very rich couple who gave her a ton of money, Belle realized that she could earn more than anyone she knew—by becoming a call girl. The rest is history.
Belle became a 20-something London working girl—and had the audacity to write about it—anonymously. The shockingly candid and explicit diary she put on the Internet became a London sensation. She shares her entire journey inside the world of high-priced escorts, including fascinating and explicit insights about her job and her clients, her various boyfriends, and a taboo lifestyle that has to be read to be believed.
The witty observations, shocking revelations, and hilarious scenarios deliver like the very best fiction and make for a titillating reading experience unlike any other. The book has been turned into a Showtime series. (From the publisher.)
The book was adapted to a British TV series, which aired from 2007-2011.
Author Bio
• Aka—Belle de Jour
• Birth—November 5, 1975
• Raised—Florida, USa
• Education—B.S.,Florida State University; M.A.,
and Ph.D., Uiversity of Sheffield (UK)
• Currently—lives in the UK
Brooke Magnanti is a research scientist, blogger, and writer, who, until her identity was revealed in November 2009, was known by the pen name Belle de Jour.
While completing her doctoral studies, between 2003 and 2004, Magnanti supplemented her income by working as a London call girl. Her diary, published as the anonymous blog "Belle de Jour: Diary of a London Call Girl" became increasingly popular, as speculation surrounded the identity of Belle de Jour, and whether the diary was real.
Remaining anonymous, Magnanti went on to have her experiences published as The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl in 2005 and The Further Adventures of a London Call Girl in 2006. Her first two books were UK top 10 best-sellers in the nonfiction hardback and nonfiction paperback lists. In 2007, Belle's blogs and books were adapted into a television programme, Secret Diary of a Call Girl, starring Billie Piper as Belle, with the real name Hannah Baxter. In November 2009, reportedly fearing her real identity was about to come out, Magnanti revealed her real name and occupation as a child health scientist. (From Wikipedia...read more on Wikipedia under Belle de Jour.)
Book Reviews
A lurid, witty, sad, moving and...honest version of her life as a call girl...The author is clearly well-educated, and peppers her writings with erudite literary allusions...Whoever Belle is, she is obviously witty and clever, but also touched by melancholy. An intriguing, often disturbing work.
Lucy Cavendish - Evening Standard
She lists like Hornby. She talks dirty like Amis. She has the misanthropy of Larkin and examines the finer points of sexual technique as she is adjusting the torque on a beloved but temperamental old E-type...It's hard to believe that this clever and candid new voice has no more to say. Whoever the author is, she should give up the day job. Only then will we find out what the real Belle de Jour is made of.
Katy Guest - Indepentent
In between appointments, Belle slots in real dates and holidays, and treats us to excepts from her 'A-Z Of London Sex Work'— tips on how to chat to clients ('Lie your head off. Think of it as proving ground for a future political career'), where to buy your knickers and how to smuggle whips into hotels."
Hephizibah Anderson - Daily Mail
A talent for comedy means it's not really porn, and it's barely erotica—more like one long open-mic stand-up routine about a working girl's lige and the people she meets...a guaranteed hit.
Focus
Belle dispels the stereotypes of street hookers with her painfully candid viewpoint. She is intelligent, witty, sharp as a tack, and possessor of a life filled with friends…and even a "straitlaced as a whalebone corset" boyfriend. The anonymous author provides the perfect counterbalance to the raw sexual content with a matter-of-fact, humorous voice with a healthy dose of irony. And the scenarios with clients are hilarious when taken out of context. Her journal of this lifestyle is as entertaining as it is enlightening, reading more like fiction than an autobiography. It requires an open mind and nonjudgmental attitude, but it’s well worth the time.
Bookfetish. org
Told with verve, and swinging both ways, this is a little like an owner’s manual to sexual positions, variations and perversions, in fact there seems to be little this woman hasn’t experienced at one time or another. Her account about lit candles getting set into assorted orifices nearly put this reviewer off, yet the candor and humor help keep this diary from sinking into the quagmire as Belle recounts light boyfriends and a true flame. Explicit to a fault, this fun, quick read is sure to have you laughing out loud as Belle reveals the quirks and fantasies of her varied clientele.
Bookbrothel.com
Apart from merely being an entertaining read, the book does come up with a few enlightening insights — that a change of lingerie, spare stockings, makeup kit, phone, diary and the occasional whip will never fit into a small handbag; that not all men who avail of her services are chauvinistic, desperate sleazeballs; and that not all call girls are trashy, uncultured women who wouldn't know how to write a book if their lives depended on it.
Samanth.blogspot.com
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for Secret Diary of a Call Girl:
1. What was your attitude toward prostitution before reading this book? Did your attitude change after having read it? How so or how not so? What surprised you about the book?
2. Is Belle De Jour making a pitch on behalf of the call-girl industry? Or is she simply presenting her life as it is? What is her own attitude toward "the industry"? Is there a legal, moral or societal difference between high-paid call girls and street prostitutes?
3. How did you find Belle's candor and matter-of-fact tone?
4. Many readers and reviewers find the book humorous. Do you? Who is the butt (oh, that's rich...) of the jokes?
5. Talk about the male clients and what they're looking for?
6. Belle says in her opening chapter
In a world of twelve-year-olds in sexy boots and grannies in sparkly minidresses, the surest way to tell the prostitute walking into a hotel at Heathrow is to look for the lady in the designer suit
7. Is it possible for society to be judgmental about selling sex, when we are bombarded by sex to sell products. Think about the use of heightened sexuality—in the fashion industry, advertisements, popular music, TV shows and film?
8. Did you have fun reading the book?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or offf, with attribution. Thanks.)
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Black Like Me
John Howard Griffin, 1961
Penguin Group USA
208 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780451234216
Summary
A dramatic true story about crossing the color line in the segregated Deep South.
In the Deep South of the 1950s, journalist John Howard Griffin decided to cross the color line. Using medication that darkened his skin to deep brown, he exchanged his privileged life as a Southern white man for the disenfranchised world of an unemployed black man.
His audacious, still chillingly relevant eyewitness history is a work about race and humanity—that in this new millennium still has something important to say to every American. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—June 16, 1920
• Where—Dallas, Texas, USA
• Died—September 9, 1980
• Where—Fort Worth, Texas
• Awards—National Council of Negro Women Award; Pacem
in Terris Peace and Freedom Award (Catholic Church)
• Education—University of Poitiers (France); Ecole
de Medecine (Paris)
John Howard Griffin was an American journalist and author much of whose writing was about racial equality. He is best known for darkening his skin and journeying through Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia to experience segregation in the Deep South in 1959. He wrote about this experience in his 1961 book Black Like Me.
Griffin was born in Dallas, Texas to John Walter Griffin and Lena May Griffin, née YoungAwarded a scholarship, he studied French and literature at the University of Poitiers and medicine at the École de Médecine. At 19, he worked as a medic in the French Resistance army, where he was in charge of a psychiatric hospital. He also helped to smuggle Jewish children to safety and freedom.
He then served 39 months stationed in the South Pacific in the United States Army Air Corps. He spent a year in 1943-44 as the only white person on one of the Solomon Islands, where he was assigned to study the local culture; he even went so far as to marry. His biographer says he had to learn "the Floridian dialect," which would place his stay in the Florida or Nggela Islands, just north of Guadalcanal, where a significant campaign had just taken place in 1942-43. His 1956 novel Nuni is a semi-autobiographical work that draws heavily on his year "marooned" on the tropical island, and shows an interest in ethnography that he followed more fully in Black Like Me.
Later in his service, he was decorated for bravery. As a result of an accident during his service in the United States Air Force, he went blind; during this decade of darkness from 1947 to 1957 he wrote. He returned to Texas and taught piano, marrying one of his pupils. He later regained his vision, becoming an accomplished photographic artist. His experiences in losing and regaining sight have been posthumously published as Scattered Shadows: A Memoir of Blindness and Vision.
Griffin converted to Catholicism in 1952 and became a Third Order Carmelite. He was also a lifelong Democrat.
In the fall of 1959, Griffin determined to investigate the plight of African-Americans in the South firsthand. He consulted a New Orleans dermatologist, who prescribed a course of drugs, sunlamp treatments, and skin creams. Griffin also shaved his head so as not to reveal his straight hair. He spent several weeks as a black man in New Orleans and parts of Mississippi (with side trips to Alabama and Georgia) traveling mainly by bus and hitch-hiking.
His resultant memoir, Black Like Me, became a best seller in 1961. The book described in detail the problems a black man encountered in the South meeting simple needs such as finding food, shelter, and toilet facilities. Griffin also described the hatred he often felt from white people he encountered in his daily life—shop clerks, ticket sellers, bus drivers, et al. Griffin was particularly shocked by the extent to which white men displayed curiosity about his sexual life. The tale was tempered with some anecdotes of whites who were relatively friendly and helpful.
After the publication of Black Like Me, Griffin became a national celebrity for a time. In a 1975 essay included in later editions of the book, Griffin described the hostility and threats to himself and his family which emerged in his Texas hometown. He eventually was forced to move out of America and went to Mexico.
Throughout his life, Griffin lectured and wrote on race relations and social justice. Griffin was awarded the Pacem in Terris Award, named after a 1963 encyclical letter by Pope John XXIII that calls upon all people of good will to secure peace among all nations. Pacem in Terris is Latin for "Peace on Earth."
In later years, Griffin focused much of his work on researching his friend Thomas Merton, the American Trappist monk and spiritual writer whom he first met in 1962. Griffin was the original choice by Merton's estate to write the authorized biography of Merton. While Griffin's health prevented him from completing this project, his more finished portion of the biography, on Merton's later years, was posthumously published in 1983 as Follow the Ecstasy: Thomas Merton, the Hermitage Years, 1965-1968.
Griffin died on September 9, 1980 at age 60 from complications due to diabetes.
It has been erroneously claimed that the large doses of Oxsoralen Griffin used in 1959 eventually led to his death from (the claim asserts) skin cancer. However, Griffin never had skin cancer; the only negative symptoms he suffered because of the drug were temporary and minor. The worst, arguably, were fatigue and nausea. (From Wikipedia and the New York Times.)
Book Reviews
(Audio version.) Griffin's mid-century classic on race brilliantly withstands both the test of time and translation to audio format. Concerned by the lack of communication between the races and wondering what "adjustments and discriminations" he would face as a Negro in the Deep South, the late author, a journalist and self-described "specialist in race issues," left behind his privileged life as a Southern white man to step into the body of a stranger. In 1959, Griffin headed to New Orleans, darkened his skin and immersed himself in black society, then traveled to several states until he could no longer stand the racism, segregation and degrading living conditions. Griffin imparts the hopelessness and despair he felt while executing his social experiment, and professional narrator Childs renders this recounting even more immediate and emotional with his heartfelt delivery and skillful use of accents. The CD package includes an epilogue on social progress, written in 1976 by the author, making it suitable for both the classroom and for personal enlightenment.
Publishers Weekly
(Audio version.) In 1959, Griffin, a noted white journalist, decided to try an experiment. He felt that the only way to determine the truth about how African Americans were treated by whites, and to learn if there was discrimination, was to become one. After a series of medical treatments that darkened his skin, he began his travels in the Deep South. Made up primarily of his journal entries during that time, Black Like Me, read by Ray Childs, details the experiences he had while passing for black. He finds that the people who saw him as white days earlier would not give him the time of day. He suffered even more as he rode buses in New Orleans, discovering how whites would no longer sit next to him. Listeners will be fascinated by his bus trip to Mississippi during which the driver would not let any of the African Americans off at a rest stop and how some of the passengers decided to deal with this slight. A fascinating view of life before the heyday of the Civil Rights movement, showing the difficulties of being black in America. For all libraries. —Danna Bell-Russel, Library of Congress
Library Journal
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for Black Like Me:
1. Griffin became an international celebrity after publication of his article in Sepia magazine and later his book, Black Like Me. However, he also faced open hostility throughout the American South, including being burned in effigy in his hometown. What might today's reaction be if the book had just been published?
2. What motivates Griffin to change the color of his skin and take on the identify of a black man?
3. Talk about his reaction as Griffin looks in the mirror and first sees a black man peering back at him. He feels he has lost his identity. How would you feel if you changed the color of your skin? How does skin color affect identity? Is skin color a more powerful determinant than gender?
4. What do you consider as the most difficult experience that Griffin faced as a black man? What angered or depressed him—or you—the most?
5. How did you respond to the white men's attitude toward African-American sexuality? How does that stance dehumanize black men and women? And what does it say about white men who are so obsessed by the idea of black sexuality?
6. Griffin spends a day with his acquaintance P.D. East, and the two discuss racism and the law in the South. Talk about the ways in which prejudice was incorporated into the South's legal code.
7. How does the treatment Griffin receives at the hands of white people affect him? What does he notice about himself after a couple of weeks? Do you think his experience of racism was harder for Griffin because he was white...or easier because he was white?
8. Talk about Griffin's time in Montgomery, Alabama, and the young Martin Luther King, Jr., back then a still unknown figure outside the South.
9. What were some of the other positive things Griffin experienced? What about those who rose above the cruelty of hatred and intolerence? In what way did they offer hope?
10. The book was published in 1959. How far has the nation come in the past 50 years. Beyond the most obvious fact that the country elected an African-American president, to what extent—and how—does racism continue to show itself? What racial injustices, faced by Griffin in 1959, still exist today?
11. Follow-up to Question 10: What would Griffin would experience if he were to attempt his project today?
12. Even with his darkened skin, John Howard Griffin was still a white man. Was it possible for him to truly experience life as a black man? Is his book well-meaning but arrogant in its attempt to speak of another race's experiences? Or do you think Black Like me offers a critical perspective because it is the closest that any white person could ever come to experiencing—and thus understanding—racial intolerance?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations
James Surowiecki, 2004
Knopf Doubleday
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780385721707
Summary
In this fascinating book, New Yorker business columnist James Surowiecki explores a deceptively simple idea: Large groups of people are smarter than an elite few, no matter how brilliant—better at solving problems, fostering innovation, coming to wise decisions, even predicting the future.
With boundless erudition and in delightfully clear prose, Surowiecki ranges across fields as diverse as popular culture, psychology, ant biology, behavioral economics, artificial intelligence, military history, and politics to show how this simple idea offers important lessons for how we live our lives, select our leaders, run our companies, and think about our world. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1967
• Where—Meriden, Connecticut, USA
• Education—B.A., University of North Carolina; graduate
studies at Harvard University
• Currently—lives in Brooklyn, New York, NY
James Surowiecki is a staff writer at The New Yorker, where he writes the popular business column, “The Financial Page.” His work has appeared in a wide range of publications, including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Artforum, Wired, and Slate. He lives in Brooklyn, New York. (From the publisher.)
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Surowiecki was born in Meriden, Connecticut and spent several childhood years in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico where he received a junior high school education from Southwestern Educational Society (SESO).
On May 5, 1979, he won the Scripps-Howard Regional Puerto Rico Spelling Bee championship. He is a 1984 graduate of Choate Rosemary Hall and a 1988 alumnus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was a Morehead Scholar. Surowiecki pursued Ph.D. studies in American History on a Mellon Fellowship at Yale University before becoming a financial journalist. He lives in Brooklyn, New York and is married to Slate culture editor Meghan O'Rourke.
Before joining The New Yorker, he wrote “The Bottom Line” column for New York magazine and was a contributing editor at Fortune.
He got his start on the Internet when he was hired from graduate school by Motley Fool co-founder David Gardner, to be the Fool's editor-in-chief of its culture site on America Online, entitled "Rogue" (1995-6). As The Motley Fool closed that site down and focused on finance, the versatile Surowiecki made the switch over to become a finance writer, which he did over the succeeding three years, including being assigned to write the Fool's column on Slate from 1997-2000.
In 2002, Surowiecki edited an anthology, Best Business Crime Writing of the Year, a collection of articles from different business news sources that chronicle the fall from grace of various CEOs. In 2004, he published The Wisdom of Crowds, in which he argued that in some circumstances, large groups exhibit more intelligence than smaller, more elite groups, and that collective intelligence shapes business, economies, societies and nations. (From Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
The author has a knack for translating the most algebraic of research papers into bright expository prose.
New York Times Book Review
Surowiecki, who has fashioned a fascinating financial column in the New Yorker by using cutting-edge social science research to interpret market life, finds ample evidence to support his argument. He writes with command and flair, weaving together entertaining anecdotes from popular culture and business history and accessible summaries of arcane theoretical debates in behavioral economics, sociology and psychology. The Wisdom of Crowds is both intellectually challenging and a pleasure to read.
Eric Klinenberg - Washington Post
This book is not just revolutionary but essential reading for everyone.
Christian Science Monitor
Convincingly argues that under the right circumstances, it’s the crowd that’s wiser than even society’s smartest individuals. New Yorker business columnist Surowiecki enlivens his argument with dozens of illuminating anecdotes and case studies from business, social psychology, sports and everyday life.
Entertainment Weekly
While our culture generally trusts experts and distrusts the wisdom of the masses, New Yorker business columnist Surowiecki argues that "under the right circumstances, groups are remarkably intelligent, and are often smarter than the smartest people in them." To support this almost counterintuitive proposition, Surowiecki explores problems involving cognition (we're all trying to identify a correct answer), coordination (we need to synchronize our individual activities with others) and cooperation (we have to act together despite our self-interest). His rubric, then, covers a range of problems, including driving in traffic, competing on TV game shows, maximizing stock market performance, voting for political candidates, navigating busy sidewalks, tracking SARS and designing Internet search engines like Google. If four basic conditions are met, a crowd's "collective intelligence" will produce better outcomes than a small group of experts, Surowiecki says, even if members of the crowd don't know all the facts or choose, individually, to act irrationally. "Wise crowds" need (1) diversity of opinion; (2) independence of members from one another; (3) decentralization; and (4) a good method for aggregating opinions. The diversity brings in different information; independence keeps people from being swayed by a single opinion leader; people's errors balance each other out; and including all opinions guarantees that the results are "smarter" than if a single expert had been in charge. Surowiecki's style is pleasantly informal, a tactical disguise for what might otherwise be rather dense material. He offers a great introduction to applied behavioral economics and game theory. While armchair social scientists (e.g., readers of The Tipping Point) will find this book interesting, college economics, math, statistics and finance students could really profit from spending time with Surowiecki.
Publishers Weekly
According to Surowiecki, the "simple but powerful truth" at the heart of his book is that "under the right circumstances, groups are remarkably intelligent, and are often smarter than the smartest people in them." Surowiecki, a staff writer for the Financial Page of The New Yorker, analyzes the concept of collective wisdom and applies it to various areas of the social sciences, including economics and politics. The author examines three kinds of problems involved in collective wisdom: cognition, or problems with definite solutions; coordination, where members of a group figure out how to coordinate their behavior with one another; and cooperation, involving getting self-centered individuals to work together. Part 1 studies the three problems (cognition, coordination, and cooperation) and the factors it takes for the crowd to be wise (diversity, dependence, and a specific type of decentralization). Part 2 contains case studies illustrating both success and failure of collective intelligence. Surowiecki also draws upon studies and works of past theorists of collective intelligence, including Charles Mackay's landmark Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. This work is an intriguing study of collective intelligence and how it works in contemporary society. —Lucy Heckman, St. John's Univ. Lib., Jamaica, NY
Library Journal
Multitudes are generally smarter than their smartest members, declares New Yorker writer Surowiecki. With his theory of the inherent sagacity of large groups, Surowiecki seems to differ with Scottish journalist Charles Mackay's 1841 classic, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, which dealt with such stupidities as the South Sea Bubble, tulipmania, odd styles of whiskers, and dueling. Our 21st-century author admits that there are impediments and constraints to the intelligence of large groups, usually problems of cognition, coordination, and cooperation. A group must have knowledge, Surowiecki states: not extensive knowledge, but rudimentary comprehension of basic fact with harmonized behavior by individual members. Finally, individuals must go beyond self-interest for the good of all. That's how capital markets and Google's algorithm work, and how science isolated the SARS virus. Lack of the basics leads to traffic jams, the dot-com crash, and the Columbia shuttle mission disaster. If crowds are inherently clever, a reader may be prompted to ask, just how smart is a flock of turkeys? Not very smart, certainly, but smarter, Surowiecki would assert, than the smartest turkey individual. A school of herring is going to be more intelligent than any single fish in it. All this may be less than encouraging to hot-stock analysts, high-profile CEOs, and others who sell their personal expertise for a high salary, but the author argues persuasively that collective wisdom works better than the intelligent fiat of any individual. His wide-ranging study links psychology and game theory, economics and management theory, social science and public policy. And it advances Mackay's report from times when, as the Scot put it, "knavery gathered a rich harvest from cupidity." Valuable insights regarding information cascades, crowd herding, cognitive collaboration, and group polarization. There is some individual, independent wisdom to be found here.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for The Wisdom of Crowds:
1. In what way does Surowiecki's central proposition—that a crowd is smarter than its smartest person—seem counter-intuitive? Consider our culture, which is steeped in the twin beliefs of individualism and meritocracy.
2. What does Surowiecki mean when he says crowds are "information minus error"?
3. Care to comment on this: The more power you give a single individual in the face of complexity and uncertainty, the more likely it is that bad decisions will get made." How does that remark challenge the idea of "expert authority"? Does that mean that decisions are best made by committees?
4. What is the reason that crowds are smarter and make better decisions than individuals?
5. What are the basic problems, or obstacles, that all groups face and that must be overcome if a group is to act with intelligence?
6. What conditions must be met if groups are to reach sound decisions? How difficult are these conditions to meet?
7. Talk about how groups fail to attain wisdom? How does Surowiecki suggest this happens?
8. In terms of group failure, discuss the NASA Challenger disaster. How does that tragedy fit within this book's framework?
9. Contrast Surowiecki's theory with "group think," or crowd psychology, in which groups tend toward conformity, often to the detriment of sound decisions. What does Surowiecki believe is necessary to guard against group think?
10. Consider your personal experience with groups and organizations—personal or professional. Of those groups, do any meet the necessary conditions of Question 6? How do decisions get made in the groups you belong to?
11. The Wisdom of Crowds was written four years before the 2008 collapse of the housing bubble and subsequent global recession. How would (does) Surowiecki explain the irrational behavior of Wall Street and Main Street?
12. Which of the numerous anecdotes which Surowiecki includes in his book do you find most intriguing? Do his case studies sufficiently support his ideas? Might the author be open to the charge that he chooses only those exaples that support his position?
13. Talk about the ramifications of crowd wisdom for businesses, governance, science, and everyday life—walking down a busy sidewalk, driving in traffic, or the audience on "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" Does the theory have application to your own life?
14. Can you think of examples where Surowiecki's therory of crowd intelligence might not apply? Say, in situations that undergo continual change—warfare, consumer preferences, growth in technology?
15. Does Surowiecki adequately justify (or prove) his thesis...at least to your satisfaction?
(Questions issued by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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Fair Game: My Life as a Spy, My Betrayal by the White House or
How a Top CIA Agency Was Betrayed by Her Own Government
Valerie Plame Wilson, 2007
Simon & Schuster
412 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781451623871
Summary
On 14 July 2003 in his syndicated column in the Washington Post, Robert Novak identified "Wilson's wife" publicly as "an agency operative on weapons of mass destruction" named "Valerie Plame". The column was a response to another, published by former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson in the New York Timeson July 6, 2003, "What I Didn't Find in Africa," in which Ambassador Wilson stated that the George W. Bush administration exaggerated unreliable claims that Iraq intended to purchase uranium yellowcake to support the administration's arguments that Iraq was proliferating weapons of mass destruction so as to justify its preemptive war in Iraq.
Novak's public disclosure of Mrs. Wilson's classified covert CIA identity led to a CIA leak grand jury investigation, resulting in the indictment and successful prosecution of Lewis "Scooter" Libby—Assistant to the President of the United States, Chief of Staff to the Vice President of the United States, Dick Cheney, and Assistant to the Vice President for National Security Affairs from 2001 to 2005—for perjury, obstruction of justice, and making false statements to federal investigators.
Fair Game: My Life as a Spy, My Betrayal by the White Houseis a memoir that covers Mrs. Wilson tenure in the CIA, the leak of her secret identity, and the subsequent scandal. The book provoked a lawsuit even before its launching. In May, the publisher and Valerie Wilson sued J. Michael McConnell, Director of National Intelligence, and Michael V. Hayden, Director of the CIA, arguing that the CIA was "unconstitutionally interfering with the publication of her memoir, Fair Game, which is set to be published in October, by not allowing Plame to mention the dates she served in the CIA, even though those dates are public information."
The agency insisted that her dates of service remained classified and were not mentioned in the book, in spite of a letter published in the Congressional Record and available on the Library of Congress website from the C.I.A. to Ms. Wilson about her retirement benefits saying that she had worked for the agency since November 1985. The judged decided in favor of the agency. The CIA publication review board explained that the manuscript was "replete with statements" that "become classified when they are linked with a specific time frame", but cleared the way for the memoir to be published. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—April 19, 1963
• Where—Anchorage, Alaska, USA
• Education—B.A., Pennsylvania State University; M.A.,
London School of Economics; M.A., College of Europe,
(Bruges Belgium)
• Currently—lives in New Mexico
Valerie Elise Plame Wilson is a former United States CIA Operations Officer and the author of a memoir detailing her career and the events leading up to her resignation from the CIA.
Valerie Elise Plame was born on April 19, 1963, on Elmendorf Air Force Base, in Anchorage, Alaska, to Diane and Samuel Plame. Plame's paternal great-grandfather was a rabbi who emigrated from Ukraine; the original family surname was Plamevotski.
Growing up in "a military family ... imbued her with a sense of public duty"; her father was a lieutenant colonel in the United States Air Force, who worked for the National Security Agency for three years, and, according to her "close friend Janet Angstadt," her parents "are the type who are still volunteering for the Red Cross and Meals on Wheels in the Philadelphia suburb where they live," having moved to that area while Plame was still in school
She graduated in 1981 from Lower Moreland High School, in Huntingdon Valley, Pennsylvania, and attended Pennsylvania State University, graduating with a B.A. in advertising in 1985. By 1991, Plame had earned two master's degrees, one from the London School of Economics and Political Science and one from the College of Europe (Collège d'Europe), in Bruges, Belgium.[1][4] In addition to English, she speaks French, German, and Greek.
After graduating from Penn State in 1985, Plame was briefly married to Todd Sesler, her college boyfriend. In 1997, while she was working for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Plame met former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, IV "at a reception in Washington ... at the residence of the Turkish Ambassador." According to Wilson, because Plame was unable to reveal her CIA role to him on their first date, she told him that she was an energy trader in Brussels, and he thought at that time that she was "an up-and-coming international executive." After they began dating and became "close," Plame revealed her employment with the CIA to Wilson. They were married on April 3, 1998, Plame's second marriage and Wilson's third.
Professionally and socially, she has used variants of her name. Professionally, while a covert CIA officer, she used her given first name and her maiden surname, "Valerie Plame." Since leaving the CIA, as a speaker, she has used the name "Valerie Plame Wilson," and she is referred to by that name in the civil suit that the Wilsons brought against former and current government officials, Plame v. Cheney. Socially, and in public records of her political contributions, since her marriage in 1998, she has used the name "Valerie E. Wilson."
Prior to the disclosure of her classified CIA identity, Valerie and Joe Wilson and their twins lived in the Palisades, an affluent neighborhood of Washington, D.C., on the fringe of Georgetown. After she resigned from the CIA following the disclosure of her covert status, in January 2006, they moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico. In a 2011 interview, Plame said she and Wilson had received threats while living in the D.C. metro area, and while she acknowledged an element of threat remains in their new home, the New Mexico location "tamps down the whole swirl."
After graduating from college, moving to Washington, D.C., and marrying Sesler, Plame worked at a clothing store while awaiting results of her application to the CIA. She was accepted into the 1985–86 CIA officer training class and began her training for what would become a twenty-year career with the Agency.[12] Although the CIA will not release publicly the specific dates from 1985 to 2002 when she worked for it, due to security concerns Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald affirmed that Plame "was a CIA officer from January 1, 2002, forward" and that "her association with the CIA was classified at that time through July 2003. Due to the nature of her clandestine work for the CIA, many details about Plame's professional career are still classified, but it is documented that she worked for the CIA in a clandestine capacity relating to counter-proliferation.
Plame served the CIA as a non-official cover (or NOC), operating undercover in (at least) two positions in Athens and Brussels. While using her own name, "Valerie Plame", her assignments required posing in various professional roles in order to gather intelligence more effectively. Two of her covers include serving as a junior consular officer in the early 1990s in Athens and then later an energy analyst for the private company (founded in 1994) "Brewster Jennings & Associates," which the CIA later acknowledged was a front company for certain investigations.
A former senior diplomat in Athens remembered Plame in her dual role and also recalled that she served as one of the 'control officers' coordinating the visit of President George H.W. Bush to Greece and Turkey in July 1991. After the Gulf War in 1991, the CIA sent her first to the London School of Economics and then the College of Europe, in Bruges, for Master's degrees. After earning the second one, she stayed on in Brussels, where she began her next assignment under cover as an "energy consultant" for Brewster-Jennings. Beginning in 1997, Plame's primary assignment was shifted to the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. The CIA’s Ishmael Jones confirmed her status as a NOC or “deep cover officer” and remarked that she was talented and highly intelligent, but decried the fact that her career largely featured US-based Headquarters service, typical of most CIA officers.
She married Wilson in 1998 and gave birth to their twins in 2000, and resumed travel overseas in 2001, 2002, and 2003 as part of her cover job. She met with workers in the nuclear industry, cultivated sources, and managed spies. She was involved in ensuring that Iran did not acquire nuclear weapons. (From Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
[T]he story of how [Plame's] career was derailed and her C.I.A. cover blown also has its combative side. But the real proof of Ms. Wilson’s fighting spirit is the form in which her version of events has been brought into the light of day.... What emerges is a sense of Ms. Wilson as an ambitious, gung-ho professional, dedicated to her work yet colorful in ways no Hollywood storyteller would dare to make up.
Janet Maslin - New York Times
The government redacted much of the significant information in the first section of Wilson's memoir, which concerns her career in the CIA. In print, a black bar omitted the words and passages; on audio, a tone does the deleting. Once the novelty of the beeps wears off, the incompleteness of Wilson's narrative, at first tantalizing, becomes frustrating. The constant interruptions make it difficult for a listener to assemble a coherent story. Once Wilson's identity is leaked by White House insiders, the memoir's redactions cease for the most part. Unfortunately, her distress over the attempted destruction of her and her husband's professional reputations is considerably less riveting than her spy career. Whiles neither a prose stylist or an actress, Wilson reads clearly, with immediacy and sincerity and a note of barely suppressed anger. Laura Rozen's afterword (occupying the last two CDs) fills in the gaps removed by the CIA. It's intriguing and considerably more polished. The two narratives create an interesting, if not entirely satisfying, account of a disturbing contemporary scandal.
Publishers Weekly
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for Fair Game:
1. What do you think of Valerie Plame Wilson? Did reading her memoir alter your view of her?
2. Why did Plame Wilson write this memoir? What was her purpose in doing so? Does the book accomplish her goals?
3. Why did Plame Wilson join the CIA? How does she describe the agency and the training the operatives through? Were you surprised by its rigor?
4. How does Plame describe the position of female officers vis-a-vis career advancement in the CIA?
5. How difficult, irritating, puzzling was it for you to read the memoir with all the redactions (blacked out text) by the CIA? Does it make sense that parts of Ms. Plame's career could not be published in her book...even though the information was already in the public domain and readily available for anyone to read?
6. What do you think of the book's Afterword by Laura Rozen? Is it helpful, illuminating, or dull and irritating? Is there anything in Rozen's revelations that might constitute a national security secret?
7. What was your understanding of the Plame Affair—in which members of the Bush administration revealed her identity as a CIA operative—before reading this book? Has your understanding changed as a result of reading the memoir?
8. Do you think it was wrong to have released—and published—Plame's name? Or do you agree with former White House officials that they did nothing wrong because Plame was no longer an undercover agent? Why was her cover blown in the first place?
9. Does this account by Plame of her activities convince you that she once worked under deep cover...which some in Washington had questioned?
10. What damage was been done by the publication of her identity?
11. Is Plame's use of "betrayal" in the subtitle the right word? In what way did the CIA betray her? What should they have done when her identity was revealed?
12. What were her friends' reactions when they found out Plame had been a spy? Were they justified in their feelings?
13. Talk about the impact her career derailment had on her marriage. Had you been a friend at the time, what advice might you have offered?
14. Plame writes "I would soon find out that in Washington, the truth is not always enough." What was she referring to...and why isn't truth enough?
15. Where does the book's title "fair game" come from?
16. How did Plame come to feel about the Bush administration? What does she mean when she says that the efforts to shut her and her husband up were "classic Karl Rove"? Do you agree, as Plame puts it that "their tactics would have made Joseph McCarthy proud"? In what way?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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