Purchase
Hope and Fear in America, 1919
Simon and Schuster
April 2007
On Sale: April 10, 2007
560 pages
ISBN: 0743243714
EAN: 9780743243711
Hardcover
Add to Wish List
Non-Fiction | Historical
Written with the sweep of an epic novel and grounded in
extensive research into contemporary documents, Savage Peace
is a striking portrait of American democracy under stress.
It is the surprising story of America in the year 1919. In the aftermath of an unprecedented worldwide war and a flu
pandemic, Americans began the year full of hope, expecting
to reap the benefits of peace. But instead, the fear of
terrorism filled their days. Bolshevism was the new menace,
and the federal government, utilizing a vast network of
domestic spies, began to watch anyone deemed suspicious. A
young lawyer named J. Edgar Hoover headed a brand-new
intelligence division of the Bureau of Investigation (later
to become the FBI). Bombs exploded on the doorstep of the
attorney general's home in Washington, D.C., and thirty-six
parcels containing bombs were discovered at post offices
across the country. Poet and journalist Carl Sandburg,
recently returned from abroad with a trunk full of Bolshevik
literature, was detained in New York, his trunk seized. A
twenty-one-year-old Russian girl living in New York was
sentenced to fifteen years in prison for protesting U.S.
intervention in Arctic Russia, where thousands of American
soldiers remained after the Armistice, ostensibly to guard
supplies but in reality to join a British force meant to be
a warning to the new Bolshevik government. In 1919, wartime legislation intended to curb criticism of
the government was extended and even strengthened. Labor
strife was a daily occurrence. And decorated
African-American soldiers, returning home to claim the
democracy for which they had risked their lives, were badly
disappointed. Lynchings continued, race riots would erupt in
twenty-six cities before the year ended, and secret agents
from the government's "Negro Subversion" unit routinely
shadowed outspoken African-Americans. Adding a vivid human drama to the greater historical
narrative, Savage Peace brings 1919 alive through the people
who played a major role in making the year so remarkable.
Among them are William Monroe Trotter, who tried to put
democracy for African-Americans on the agenda at the Paris
peace talks; Supreme Court associate justice Oliver Wendell
Holmes Jr., who struggled to find a balance between free
speech and legitimate government restrictions for reasons of
national security, producing a memorable decision for the
future of free speech in America; and journalist Ray
Stannard Baker, confidant of President Woodrow Wilson, who
watched carefully as Wilson's idealism crumbled and wrote
the best accounts we have of the president's frustration and
disappointment. Weaving together the stories of a panoramic cast of
characters, from Albert Einstein to Helen Keller, Ann
Hagedorn brilliantly illuminates America at a pivotal moment.
Comments
No comments posted.
Registered users may leave comments.
Log in or register now!
| 
© 2003-2024 off-the-edge.net
all rights reserved Privacy Policy