The other American

the life of Michael Harrington

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Last edited by MARC Bot
July 11, 2024 | History

The other American

the life of Michael Harrington

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"In the days of Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society" programs of the 1960s, Michael Harrington was described as "the man who discovered poverty." On the eve of the millenium, Time magazine listed his 1962 book The Other America as one of the ten most important nonfiction books published in the twentieth century. Yet, as Maurice Isserman's new biography reveals, Harrington was never satisfied with the role of "social critic," however influential.

His life's ambition was nothing less than creating a powerful and pragmatic "left-wing of the possible" in the United States, a democratic socialist movement akin to those in power in much of western Europe, that he hoped could help tug the Center to the Left, and the Left to the Center in American politics.".

"In The Other American, Isserman tells for the first time Harrington's true story. He follows Michael's life from his birth in 1928 in St. Louis, where he was the only son of a securely middle-class and devoutly religious Irish-Catholic family, through his education at Holy Cross, Yale Law School, and the University of Chicago, and then on to New York City's Greenwich Village in 1950.

In the midst of the Korean War and at the height of the McCarthy era, Harrington took a highly unusual step toward the margins of American political and cultural life, enlisting first in Dorothy Day's Catholic Worker movement, and then in the battered remnants of the socialist movement led by Norman Thomas.

Isserman's biography shows how Harrington spent much of the decade that followed as an itinerant radical organizer, honing his skills as a speaker and writer, working with black activists like Bayard Rustin and Martin Luther King, Jr. in the earliest days of the modern civil rights movement, and becoming familiar with those "invisible Americans" whose lives he would chronicle in The Other America.".

"The Other American is a history of the American left during the past half-century. Harrington encountered, befriended, and fought with a spectacular array of American characters, from Norman Thomas to Dylan Thomas, Irving Howe to Daniel Patrick Moynihan, William F. Buchley to Norman Mailer, and many, many others."--BOOK JACKET.

Publish Date
Publisher
PublicAffairs
Language
English
Pages
449

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Previews available in: English

Edition Availability
Cover of: The Other American
The Other American : The Life of Michael Harrington
March 6, 2001, Public Affairs
Paperback in English
Cover of: The other American
The other American: the life of Michael Harrington
2000, PublicAffairs
in English

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Book Details


Edition Notes

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Published in
New York
Genre
Biography.

Classifications

Dewey Decimal Class
300/.92, B
Library of Congress
H59.H36 I85 2000, H59.H36I85 2000

The Physical Object

Pagination
xi, 449 p. :
Number of pages
449

ID Numbers

Open Library
OL51310M
Internet Archive
otheramericanlif0000isse
ISBN 10
1891620304
LCCN
99056654
OCLC/WorldCat
42842377
Library Thing
702688
Goodreads
1782505

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History

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July 11, 2024 Edited by MARC Bot import existing book
October 8, 2021 Edited by ImportBot import existing book
August 6, 2021 Edited by New York Times Bestsellers Bot Add NYT review links
April 30, 2010 Edited by WorkBot merge works
October 17, 2009 Created by WorkBot add works page