The American Journey of Eric Sevareid [Hardcover]

Raymond Schroth (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 1995

As much a primer on good journalism as it is a biography. --L.A. Daily News

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Sevareid (1912-1992) was born and raised in North Dakota?where he was known as Arnold?and led an idyllic childhood. When his father's bank failed in 1925, the family moved to Minnesota. After graduating from the University of Minnesota, he went to work for the Minneapolis Journal; when he was fired, he went to Europe, where he wrote for the Paris edition of the New York Herald Tribune?and changed his given name to Eric. Soon he was recruited by Edward R. Murrow to report for CBS News, for whom he would cover some of the monumental events of the war. He fled Paris ahead of the inrushing Germans, bailed out of a crippled airplane in the Burma jungle and crossed the Rhine at the defeat of the Third Reich. The postwar years saw Sevareid taking the pulse of America on radio and TV, covering elections, Vietnam, assassinations and Watergate. The author also goes into Sevareid's hypochondria; his debilitating "fear of the microphone"; his friendship with Adlai Stevenson; and his three marriages. Schroth (The Eagle and Brooklyn) has written an extremely thorough?if at times slow-moving?biography that will be of special interest to Sevareid aficionados.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Here is a major biography of CBS news analyst Sevareid, who died in 1992, from a professor of journalism at Loyola University and contributor to numerous journals, including Commonweal and the National Catholic Reporter.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 462 pages
• Publisher: Steerforth Press; 1st edition (March 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1883642124
• ISBN-13: 978-1883642129
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,954,798 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good, but not great, May 27, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The American Journey of Eric Sevareid (Hardcover)

The author's political beliefs frame this narrative. Does a good job of telling Sevareid's life, but Sevareid himself did a much better job in "Not So Wild a Dream." This book talks about Sevareid's womanizing and so on, but really does little to explain his misery. It does recount his rise and fall and is worthwhile because it does include some good quotes from Sevareid's analytical pieces (he detested that they be considered commentaries) on "The CBS Evening News With Walter Cronkite." Unfortunately, this book just seems to set up a wall between the author and its subject that is difficult to explain. You get a much better understanding of the man in "Not So Wild a Dream," and the book "Murrow's Boys."

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Readable Companion, July 4, 2003

By 

K.A.Goldberg (Chicago) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The American Journey of Eric Sevareid (Hardcover)

This straightforward biography of journalist Eric Sevareid (1912-1992) is worth reading. Author Raymond Schroth details Sevareid's upbringing in rural North Dakota and Minneapolis, his hiring by Ed Murrow, his long career with CBS, and his less than perfect retirement. Readers also learn about Sevareid's adventurous youth, troubled marriages, and bouts with melancholy and emotional insecurity. The book makes a nice companion to Sevareid's superb 1946 autobiography NOT SO WILD A DREAM, but also covers the man's later years. Sevareid moved millions with his sternly eloquent wisdom as he analyzed events for CBS radio and (later) television. The nation lost an important voice when CBS forced him out at age 65 - under a mandatory retirement policy they've since dropped. Sadly, he never wrote much in retirement, nor become a regular contributor to National Public Radio as have aged ex-CBS stalwarts Daniel Schorr, Richard B. Hotellet, and the late Bob Trout.

The author is a Jesuit instructor of journalism and former boyhood fan of Sevareid's broadcasts. Like THE MURROW BOYS, this is a nice, readable companion to Sevareid's superb autobiography.