![]() ![]() His renderings of radical firebrand Emma Goldman and socialist leader Kate Richards O’Hare are compelling and three-dimensional. Hochschild has a sharp eye for personalities and moments. ![]() ![]() ![]() Vigilantism runs amok as mobs and the government target union activists, immigrants, dissenters against the war effort, socialists, and African Americans. Mitchell Palmer) and an amoral, media-savvy policeman (young J. Close behind is a toxic partnership between an attorney general who would be president (A. In Hochschild’s telling, the United States plunges into the madness of World War I, emerges more violent and hate-filled, and then recovers its bearings.Ĭulprits are exposed and castigated, with President Woodrow Wilson at the top of the list. In American Midnight, the darkness extends from 1917 to 1921. And author Adam Hochschild has written wonderful books about other midnights in human history, including King Leopold’s Ghost(European exploitation of the Congo) and Bury the Chains(fighting the transatlantic slave trade). The title American Midnight: The Great War, a Violent Peace, and Democracy’s Forgotten Crisis promises to instruct us that the cruel distempers of our times have happened before and that, if we pay attention, we will learn important lessons. ![]()
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