Richard D. Heffner started interviewing major newsmakers on television when Dwight D. Eisenhower was president and Charlie Rose a toddler. Heffner, whose illustrious career includes co-founding New York’s WNET and serving as chairman of the motion picture ratings board, has hosted The Open Mind—the longest-running public-affairs program in television history—since 1955. Now he is drawing on forty-seven years of those televised conversations, as well as his own thoughtful perspective on the last half century, to mold As They Saw It. Drawing on the template established by last year’s Conversations with Eli Wiesel (drawn from the twenty-two Open Mind programs he and Wiesel have done together), Heffner has woven nearly five decades of provocative and thoughtful discussions with everyone from Malcolm X to Donald Rumsfeld, Eleanor Roosevelt to Norman Mailer, into a unique and authoritative Terkelesque history covering the major stories of our time. As They Saw It is a conversational history of the past fifty years, as spoken by the figures who made and lived that history. It is a treasury of never-before-published material from a dazzling array of figures—both tremendous reading and a major new source of material for students and historians alike.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Mined from 47 years of Heffner's television show, The Open Mind, this collection of "conversations" shifts from thinker to thinker within large topical umbrellas ("Power & Politics"; "The Law"; "The Media"; etc.) through artful editing. A conversation with William F. Buckley Jr., in which he argues in favor of drug legalization, follows a conversation with Mario Cuomo, in which he calls for a reassessment of American values. An exchange with Gloria Steinem on Marilyn Monroe precedes a discourse with Naomi Wolf on the "beauty myth." The elegance of these arrangements is delightfully perplexing, for a reader can only wonder what material Heffner and Jaffe have excluded. But while this collection is definitely a mighty addition to the historical record, to call it a "history of modern America" is a gross inflation. One can read this simply (and fairly) as a diverse reflection of American thought over the last half-century, But a dearth of conversations with artists (novelists, musicians, poets, painters, architects, actors) is disturbing for a book that by its title claims to encompass so much of modern America. (In fairness, Heffner, who worked as chairman of the board of the motion picture industry's rating system, has avoided potential conflicts of interest throughout his interviewing career, which offers a partial explanation for these absences.) On a more practical note, placing transcript dates at the end of each interview rather than at the beginning means the reader has to wait to discover that much of the commentary is more often prophetic than it is dated.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
From nearly a half-century of interviews of guests on his high-minded public television program The Open Mind, Heffner transcribes the best badinage and assigns it to the standard slots of politics, law, media, feminism, and the like. One subject area conspicuously absent is science, which is curious for a volume that is a trend-tracker for the times. Nevertheless, television viewers weary of current-events shows that resemble arena wrestling more than sane public-policy discussion will appreciate Heffner's conduct of the format. He lets his guests talk--for 35 pages in the case of Malcolm X and others debating black separatism circa 1963--and, while rarely challenging them, Heffner has the knack of asking the question that keeps the conversation stoked. Loquacity may be the occupational trait of many of Heffner's author guests, but he keeps them focused and interesting, even in the case of Helen Gurley Brown flogging her Cosmo philosophy. For Heffner's core readership: PBS loyalists. REVWR
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
By Sol Wachtler
Format:Hardcover
This is not a reference book with biographical notes and observations about those who have made history during our generation. These are the actual words and thoughts of those persons extracted through interviews by Richard Heffner one of the most gifted, articulate, and accomplished historians of our age. If you don't read this book and make it a part of your library, you will be missing an important opportunity. I recommend it most highly.
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