Citizen Hearst: A Biography of William Randolph Hearst [Paperback]

W.A. Swanberg (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 672 pages
• Publisher: Collier Books; Scribner/Collier ed. edition (May 1, 1981)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684171473
• ISBN-13: 978-0684171470
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #204,624 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Book - Bad Man, February 22, 2002

By 

T. J. Graczewski "tgraczewski" (Burlingame, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Citizen Hearst: A Biography of William Randolph Hearst (Paperback)

It isn't often that one reads a well-respected, full-length biography of a prominent American personality, only to put the book down with a newfound, passionate and complete disgust for the central character. That is how W.A. Swanberg's 1961 classic "Citizen Hearst" made me feel about William Randolph Hearst. I can say that about no other biography I've ever read.

Indeed, the derogatory adjectives that apply directly to William Randolph Hearst are virtually inexhaustible: irresponsible, pampered, egotistical, hypocritical, lascivious, presumptuous, adulterous, rapacious, etc. One searches in vain for admirable or redeeming qualities in Hearst. Even supposed acts of benevolence and charity - which usually centered on the one thing that meant nothing to him, money - always seem to smack of insincerity and self-interest. None of this, of course, is meant to detract from Swanberg's phenomenal account of the publisher's life, which is truly engrossing and highly recommended by this reader.

Hearst was born in the lap of luxury and never knew the value of a dollar earned by a day's work, yet for over half-a-century he fashioned himself the defender of the common man and was a leading voice in Progressive politics. Far from creating a profitable media empire, Hearst's newspapers lost money at a staggering rate for well over a decade (Swanberg's account is frustrating in that he never clarifies exactly when Hearst's efforts turned profitable). The simple secret of Heart's success was that his deceased father's mines could churn out precious metal at a faster pace than he could squander the profits on his newspapers and chasing the chimera of the presidency. He took a mistress half his age when he was in his fifties and married with five children, and devoted all his immense energy and resources into making her the biggest film star in the world, despite her rather limited talent. An early hero to the radical left, in old age he reversed course and emerged as one of the earliest and most virulent anti-communists and opponents of the progressive income tax - a measure he once championed.

Swanberg delivers this amazing life in an extremely fluid and engaging - indeed, exciting - narrative. He notes that people have never been able to adequately explain William Randolph Hearst. The instinct was - and still is - to use the world "great" when describing him, but great in what way? Swanberg offers up his own conclusion: Hearst was the greatest loser of his generation. Not exactly a flattering assessment, but nonetheless a very accurate one. In the end, Hearst failed in business, in politics, in marriage, and in the movie business. For better or worse, he left an indelible stamp on the American experience, and for that he should be remembered, if not exactly revered.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "I think it would be fun to run a newspaper...", April 12, 2005

By 

Andrew McCaffrey "The Grumpy Young Man" (Satellite of Love, Maryland) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Citizen Hearst: A Biography of William Randolph Hearst (Paperback)

Everything I knew about William Randolph Hearst I learned from the movie CITIZEN KANE. So when I found a cheap, second-hand copy of CITIZEN HEARST, I decided to pick it up and educate myself. Not only was this informative, but highly entertaining. A man capable of rousing such fiercely diametric emotions from people reading his biography decades after his death must surely have raised the ire of his contemporaries something fierce. It is with very mixed emotions that the modern reader comes to understand the events of Heart's life, but those feelings probably aren't a million miles away from what was felt at the time. While reading this biography I kept leaping between admiration and loathing for the subject -- an experience I've never quite had before.

My copy of CITIZEN HEARST is over six hundred pages and written in a smaller than average font size. Yet, as the biographer points out, with the sheer amount of stuff that Hearst accomplished (or at least attempted) in his life, it would be easy to dedicate an entire volume just to single individual activities. But, W. A. Swanberg does a great job of summarizing the main details of Hearst's life without being overly superficial. I even enjoyed the opening sections, dealing with William Randolph Heart's childhood. Many times in biographies, this ends up being a list of dates, schools and relatives; yet Swanberg defies the norm and gives the child Hearst an interesting story.

Of course, the main account is everything that Hearst did after his early-twenties, when he took a fancy towards the journalistic world and obtained a newspaper from his wealthy father. Hearst's subsequent ideas of journalism, his later political ambitions (he fixed his sights on the White House, but never did get higher than the United States House of Representatives), and his obsessive collection of art and property are all laid out meticulously and clearly.

And the information imparted is absolutely unbelievably fascinating. We think the media is pretty bad today, but after reading this I realize that the today's Ted Turners and Rupert Murdochs have absolutely nothing on the yellow journalism of that era. Organizing divisions of reporters to arrive at the scene of a crime before the police do or staging an elaborate midnight rescue of a Cuban "princess" from the Spanish army -- can we really imagine Bill O'Reilly or Aaron Brown attempting those ratings stunts?

In addition to detailing Heart's business and political aspirations, Swanberg also delves into an aspect of Heart's life that was brilliantly captured in Orson Welles' portrayal of Charles Foster Kane (the thinly veiled fictionalized version of Heart himself). Just as Welles' character was a ruthless and ambition man, who is also shown happily spending hours using silly shadow puppets to entertain a sad, lonely girl, Swanberg introduces us to a serious, focused, cutthroat and dangerous man who was exceedingly soft-spoken, kind on a personal level and who would easily break into goofy vaudeville-style dances to amuse his friends.

This biography not only informed me, but also got me curious on a variety of related subjects that I intend to study further. I knew almost nothing, for example, about Hearst's intervention in the lead up to the Spanish-American War (Swanberg practically gives him sole credit for the entire enterprise). Now, I'm dying to read more about it.

This is definitely one of the best biographies I've read, though certainly not about one of the best people. Based on the information provided, Hearst was an impossible man to pin down and understand. Swanberg posits a metaphor of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Hearst could be one man around some people, the other in different circumstances. In any case, this biography would appear to be an almost impossible task, and yet Swanberg has done a yeoman's service. I'd recommend this even to someone with no interest in the area because the writing and the subject are just too compelling.