Wednesday, November 08, 2006

New York Law Journal review

I just received another review of American Prophet, this one by Eleanor J. Bader, who stresses McWilliams's prescience, versatility, brilliant writing, cool head, and fighting spirit. For her, McWilliams is nothing less than "a lost American hero." Couldn't agree more.

According to Bader, my portrait of McWilliams is "admirable--but somewhat spotty": spotty because it says nothing about feminism, the lesbian and gay rights movement, or The Nation's relationship to The National Guardian or The Progressive. (In his vast corpus, McWilliams was very quiet about these issues.) "These gaps notwithstanding," Bader concludes, "Richardson has written a compelling biography of Carey McWilliams introducing, or for some readers re-introducing, a man who deserves to be remembered and lauded."

Thanks to Marjorie Cohn, PoliPointPress author and president of the National Lawyers Guild, for forwarding the review to me. It's posted at http://lists.portside.org/cgi-bin/listserv/wa?A2=ind0611b&L=portside&T=0&P=271. It appeared just above a piece co-authored by Steven Hill, another PoliPointPress author (10 Steps to Repair American Democracy).

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