Pulitzer: A Life - Hardcover

Brian, Denis

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0471332003 ISBN 13: 9780471332008

Publisher: Wiley, 2001

Synopsis

Acclaim for Denis Brian's Einstein: A Life

"The best account.... Superb insight." --The Times (London)

"Denis Brian's convincing picture...only makes our wonder grow at Einstein's sublime achievements." --The Washington Post

"Does much to reveal the man behind the image.... Brian's intimate work proves that in literature, as in science, taking a careful look can be a rewarding endeavor." --Detroit Free Press

"A fascinating, vastly enjoyable, deeply researched and fair account of Einstein the man." --Physics World

"Exhaustively researched, almost obsessively detailed, written with unobtrusive informality, the book is exemplary as a record of Einstein's personal and professional life." --The Spectator (u.k.)

"An utterly fascinating life of a great scientist, full of new insights and very readable." --Ashley Montagu

"A fascinating read with more interesting material about Einstein as a human being than I have ever seen before.... Once I started it, I couldn't put it down." --Robert Jastrow, astrophysicist and bestselling author

About this title

About the Author

DENIS BRIAN is the author of Einstein: A Life (Wiley), The True Gen: An Intimate Portrait of Ernest Hemingway by Those Who Knew Him, and Genius Talk: Conversations with Nobel Scientists and Other Luminaries. He lives in West Palm Beach, Florida.

From the Back Cover

Acclaim for Denis Brian's Einstein: A Life

"The best account.... Superb insight." —The Times (London)

"Denis Brian's convincing picture...only makes our wonder grow at Einstein's sublime achievements." —The Washington Post

"Does much to reveal the man behind the image.... Brian's intimate work proves that in literature, as in science, taking a careful look can be a rewarding endeavor." —Detroit Free Press

"A fascinating, vastly enjoyable, deeply researched and fair account of Einstein the man." —Physics World

"Exhaustively researched, almost obsessively detailed, written with unobtrusive informality, the book is exemplary as a record of Einstein's personal and professional life." —The Spectator (u.k.)

"An utterly fascinating life of a great scientist, full of new insights and very readable." —Ashley Montagu

"A fascinating read with more interesting material about Einstein as a human being than I have ever seen before.... Once I started it, I couldn't put it down." —Robert Jastrow, astrophysicist and bestselling author

From the Inside Flap

This intriguing biography of one of the most monumental and controversial figures in publishing history is filled with fascinating stories of the Hungarian emigrant’s rise from a practically penniless soldier in the Union army to U.S. congressman, and, finally, to the pinnacle of American journalism–and power–as the owner of two of the country’s preeminent newspapers, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and New York World.

Including new personal information about Pulitzer’s public and private life culled from his own correspondence and interviews, this absorbing book reveals how he transformed the New York World into one of the nation’s most influential and respected papers and inaugurated the era of the modern popular press and a "new journalism" that mixed sensational stunts, entertaining stories, and cartoons with serious financial, foreign, and political news, as well as editorial campaigns that helped to change the course of history.

Also revealed here are the intriguing details of the frantic Pulitzer-Hearst circulation battle during the Spanish-American War; how Pulitzer, struck blind at forty, continued to run his empire for twenty-two more years with the aid of a coterie of extraordinary secretaries, to champion the underdog, expose corrupt insurance companies and crooked politicians, and to fight injustice wherever he found it; how he was a pioneer in hiring women reporters–including Nellie Bly, uncovered James Blaine’s shady deals to assure Grover Cleveland’s victory, led the campaign to erect the Statue of Liberty, defied President Theodore Roosevelt’s attempt to imprison him for criminal libel, and founded the Columbia School of Journalism.

Reviews

Without question, newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer lived a notable life. Born in 1847 in Hungary, he traveled to the U.S. as a teenager to fight for pay in the Civil War. He learned English, became a lawyer, got involved in politics and later in journalism. He bought the struggling St. Louis Post-Dispatch, then turned the New York World into a superb daily newspaper by upholding the following fool-proof tenet: "cater to the masses and earn their trust." By the time of his death in 1911, Pulitzer had achieved global fame. Unfortunately, Brian delivers a largely warmed-over version of Pulitzer's life. In the acknowledgments, Brian (biographer of J.B. Rhine, Ernest Hemingway and Albert Einstein) thanks previous chroniclers of Pulitzer's life. If Brian's study contains anything of significance missed by those biographers, it is well hidden. The endnotes only occasionally mention primary documents (such as the many extant letters to and from Pulitzer), citing instead, over and over, earlier books about the publisher. Brian details Pulitzer's big newspaper stories, such as "A Dastard's Deed: Cold-Blooded Treachery at Last Conquers Jesse James," concerning the official price on James's head and the confidante who betrayed him. Though interesting, the rehashed news stories don't make for a meaty biography. In 1994, Brian published a book about the life-writing craft that is relentlessly critical of prominent biographers; the title was Fair Game: What Biographers Don't Tell You. Here, Brian fails to tell readers why they should read this highly derivative biography.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Brian has written an engaging biography of a giant in American journalism whose name is attached to the most prestigious award in the profession. Joseph Pulitzer, a Hungarian immigrant who came to the U.S. penniless and speaking no English, rose to the most influential position in American journalism in its formative stages. As publisher of the New York World and St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Pulitzer was a pioneer of the sensationalist "yellow" journalism of the latter part of the nineteenth century, a period marked by fierce newspaper rivalries. Pulitzer undertook trust-busting campaigns and uncovered government corruption; his exposure of government shenanigans involving the Panama Canal prompted a lawsuit by President Theodore Roosevelt. He kept his hands in the political, economic, and social affairs of the U.S. even as creeping blindness and illnesses rendered him a virtual recluse, traveling the world and issuing strict instructions to his family and staff. Brian captures the amazing verve of an exciting period in American politics and journalism, disclosing the flaws and foibles of well-known figures from Roosevelt to World reporter Nellie Bly to newspaper magnate and rival William Randolph Hearst. Vanessa Bush
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Joseph Pulitzer emigrated to the United States from his native Hungary in 1864 for a bounty offered by Union army recruiters. Discharged in 1865, he made his way to St. Louis, where with little command of English at the start, he got involved in local politics, entered the newspaper business, and eventually gained control of the Post-Dispatch. In 1883, he bought the New York World, then revolutionized American journalism and became wealthy through his sensational approach to the news and his grasp of the entertainment role of newspapers. Highly eccentric, a near-invalid for much of his life, Pulitzer is a marvelous subject for biography. Yet Brian, author of Einstein: A Life and other biographical works, has not done a marvelous job with his material. Readers will find a patchy narrative, which too often treats Pulitzer simply as a character, without insight into his person or perspective on his era. W.A. Swanberg's Pulitzer (1967) is a better book, and David Nasaw's biography of Pulitzer's great contemporary and rival, The Chief: The Life of William Randolph Hearst (LJ 6/1/00), a much better book. An optional purchase for journalism collections. Robert F. Nardini, Chichester, NH
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Wiley
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0471332003
• ISBN 13: 9780471332008
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 464