Heroes of My Time [Hardcover]

Harrison Evans Salisbury (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 1993

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Salisbury spent six decades reporting in Russia, Asia, and the US. Hardened by years in the newspaper trenches, he writes about 25 unforgettable people who inspired his admiration--Robert Kennedy, Malcolm X, Nikita Krushchev, Roger Wilkins, Patricia King, and other lesser known heroes.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Pulitzer Prize winner Salisbury, hero to countless journalists, here writes about his own heroes. The 25 figures he chooses--all from Russia, China or the U.S., Salisbury's beats--are men and women "whose bravery burns in his mind." By Salisbury's admission, not all are necessarily role models: one, Malcolm X, he categorizes as an anti-hero. The profiles presented are affecting and telling: Solzhenitsyn, Gulag prisoner SHCH 232, remains a zek , and although he takes issue with Solzhenitsyn's "often cruelly distorted" visions, Salisbury considers the world "a better place for his beliefs." Among other heroes are journalist David Halberstam, "conscience of the American heritage," and Robert Kennedy, whom Salisbury initially perceived as his brother John's capo, but came to admire when "tragedy tested him and found him true." Two Roman Catholic nuns are elected to the pantheon: Chinese Huang Roushan, who has nursed lepers in her country for 52 years, and American-born Brigid Temple, who established a language learning center in China. Salisbury also makes a case for including his late employer Iphigene Ochs Sulzberger, daughter of New York Times founder Adolph Ochs, and Sue and Lawrence Brooks, a married couple in their 90s who represent the "essence of Boston-ness." If not all of these folk are likable, their heroism is well noted by a reporter who, during a career spanning six decades, has met 'em all. 25,000 first printing; $30,000 ad/promo.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

Former New York Times reporter Salisbury (The New Emperors, 1992, etc.) profiles 25 individuals who have won his admiration. Nearly all the sketches are crisp and effective, but some subjects seem capriciously chosen, failing the author's own criteria: courage. Salisbury has chosen some figures who, though obscure to most readers, seem to have led exemplary lives--including Deng Pufang, who's used his position as son of China's current ruler to change his nation's attitudes about the physically disabled; Sue and Lawrence Brooks, a New England judge and his wife who tirelessly spoke out for civil rights in the US; and Sister Huang Roushan, a nun who for five decades has worked with China's despised lepers. The author is also drawn to those who exude edgy intelligence, energy, or capacity for growth, including Malcolm X, Robert Kennedy, Solzhenitsyn, and David Halberstam--and these sketches crackle with life (RFK was ``hard eyed, hard faced, hard minded, and thin lipped....I was certain his quick eyes did not miss a thing nor his ears a word''). Salisbury also reveals some surprising facts from his Times years, such as that then-city editor A. M. Rosenthal forbade any mention of Malcolm X in the newspaper of record. But some of the author's subjects are bound to produce head-scratching regarding their bravery: Zhou En-lai's greatest assets, for instance, seem to have been the survival skills of a ``gentleman courtier,'' and Khrushchev talked a better game against his party apparatchiks than he played. And what are we to make of this summary of the achievement of Red Storm Over China author Edgar Snow?: ``Certainly Snow could not get Mao to reveal the negatives, to detail the bloodiness of the Long March, the slaughter of the landlords, the infighting with his Russian peers. But those are details.'' Details? Lively sketches of some of the most fascinating people of our time--though a few will remain ``heroes'' to Salisbury alone. (First printing of 25,000) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Walker & Company; 1ST edition (June 1, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802712177
• ISBN-13: 978-0802712172
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.8 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,611,486 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Unforgetable Heroes, January 3, 2002

By 

Macy (Penfield, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Heroes of My Time (Hardcover)

The book Heroes Of My Time is an outstanding book containing twenty short biographies of people from the 20th century. The author of the book, Harrison E. Salsbury is a Pulitzer-Prize wining journalist who spent six decades writing for the New York Times. These people are all heroes for different reasons. Some people gave inspiration to others while some were leaders and still others risked their lives for strangers. We do not live in an age of heroes but the people written about in this book are unmistakable heroes. The stories of these heroes are unknown, uplifting, and inspirational.
The heroes in this book are not always the top newsmakers of the day. Some are men and women who are just as important but seldom recognized in the public eye. An example is three Russian street poets known as The Three who wrote very good poems about Russian politics. The political leaders of the day did not like the poems, but The Three continued to write and recite poems anyway. They are heroes because, even though they were being scorned and yelled at by the Russian leaders, they continued with their poetry and gave inspiration to many people. Brigid Temple Keogh is an example of another obscure hero. Brigid was a teacher in China, but she wasn't like her other Chinese colleagues. "She encouraged her students to argue with her (unthinkable for the solemn Chinese scholars)" (5). She was fired but she didn't give up and eventually found a new job at Yanan University. Yanan University was a run-down school at the end of a road. With houses were merely grim caves carved out of hills. Brigid did not lose her faith, though. This shows heroism because she worked hard after her life got tougher, and she helped lots of people by building new things for their town like a Language center. All of these people were relatively unknown and all obviously heroes.
The stories of these men and women are uplifting. Deng Pufang's story was particularly uplifting. Deng Pufang devoted his life to helping the disabled in China after he was tortured and then thrown out of a four story university window and left for dead. His fall left him paralyzed from the waist down. This shows extreme heroism because he could have spent the rest of his life feeling sorry for himself over all of the tragic things that happened to him but he didn't. Instead, he worked hard and got rights for the Chinese disabled, including equal rights in the work force and education. One other hero from the book whose story is uplifting is the story of Homer Bigart. Homer was one of the best newsmen of his day. What makes his story so special is he spent the majority of his life at war, constantly risking his life to let the rest of the world know what was happening. A lot of times, Homer took no more shelter or food then the troops. Homer showed his heroism by laying his life on the line for other people and not thinking of himself as above other people because he lived under same conditions as the soldiers. Both of these men's stories are examples of a heroes story being uplifting.
A third trait the heroes have in common is that they are all inspirational. Roger Wilkins is an example of a role model. Roger was a leader for the blacks during the Civil Rights movement. Roger was almost killed twice, but he kept fighting even though his life was always in danger. Roger Wilking is a hero for two reasons. The first is that he kept working even though he was constantly being threatened to stop. He is also a hero and a role model because, as a kid, he had a very tough childhood he grew up in a poor black town, and both his parents had expensive drug habits. Roger overcame this, however, and grew up to become a leader and help thousands of people. A second example of these heroes as role models is Soong Chingling. She housed run away communists during the Cultural Revolution of China. She is considered a hero because she put her life in danger every time she took in another communist but she housed them anyway. As you can see, in both the stories of Soong Chingling and Roger Wilkins the hero is inspirational.
In conclusion, the people portrayed in the book Heroes Of My Time are often unknown, uplifting, and are inspirational. All of these people are undoubtedly heroes. These are only some of the people addressed in the book there are many others whose stories are just as inspirational. The book is an outstanding piece of literature. It's very uplifting but you can also learn something about the worlds history from it.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Crisp & Readable look at heroes, March 6, 2006

By 

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

This review is from: Heroes of My Time (Hardcover)

Journalist Harrison Salisbury describes 25 people of courage whom he greatly admired. The book's revealing vignettes cover people from his native USA, plus China and Russia (Salisbury spent years in these countries), and they range from world statesmen to little known individuals. Deng Pufang devoted his life to helping the disabled after being left paralyzed during the excesses of the Cultural Revolution, while Soong Chingling took great risks to shelter "undesirables" during that same horrific event. Liu Binyan wrote prose that inspired many during his 22 years in Maoist prisons, while Solzhenitsyn angered the Kremlin with his writings about Soviet gulags. Among Americans honored are Bobby Kennedy, journalist Homer Bigart for risking his life at the front, and Roger Wilkins for overcoming a difficult youth and taking risks for civil rights. I question his choice of Nikita Khrushchev (for denouncing Stalin) and of Zhou En Lai (for moderating Mao's cruel excesses), and others may wonder why he neglected figures like Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, etc. Still, Salisbury has chosen many authentically heroic figures, describing their contributions in crisply readable detail.

Harrison Salisbury (1908-1993) was one of the top journalists of the 20th Century, winner of the 1955 Pulitzer Prize, and the author of more than 30 books on Russia, China, and the USA. This, his final book, appeared shortly after he passed away in 1993.

4.0 out of 5 stars Unforgetable Heroes, January 4, 2002

By 

Macy (Penfield, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Heroes of My Time (Hardcover)

The book Heroes Of My Time is an outstanding book containing twenty short biographies of people from the 20th century. The author of the book, Harrison E. Salsbury is a Pulitzer-Prize wining journalist who spent six decades writing for the New York Times. These people are all heroes for different reasons. Some people gave inspiration to others while some were leaders and still others risked their lives for strangers. We do not live in an age of heroes but the people written about in this book are unmistakable heroes. The stories of these heroes are unknown, uplifting, and inspirational.
The heroes in this book are not always the top newsmakers of the day. Some are men and women who are just as important but seldom recognized in the public eye. An example is three Russian street poets known as The Three who wrote very good poems about Russian politics. The political leaders of the day did not like the poems, but The Three continued to write and recite poems anyway. They are heroes because, even though they were being scorned and yelled at by the Russian leaders, they continued with their poetry and gave inspiration to many people. Brigid Temple Keogh is an example of another obscure hero. Brigid was a teacher in China, but she wasn't like her other Chinese colleagues. "She encouraged her students to argue with her (unthinkable for the solemn Chinese scholars)" (5). She was fired but she didn't give up and eventually found a new job at Yanan University. Yanan University was a run-down school at the end of a road. With houses were merely grim caves carved out of hills. Brigid did not lose her faith, though. This shows heroism because she worked hard after her life got tougher, and she helped lots of people by building new things for their town like a Language center. All of these people were relatively unknown and all obviously heroes.
The stories of these men and women are uplifting. Deng Pufang's story was particularly uplifting. Deng Pufang devoted his life to helping the disabled in China after he was tortured and then thrown out of a four story university window and left for dead. His fall left him paralyzed from the waist down. This shows extreme heroism because he could have spent the rest of his life feeling sorry for himself over all of the tragic things that happened to him but he didn't. Instead, he worked hard and got rights for the Chinese disabled, including equal rights in the work force and education. One other hero from the book whose story is uplifting is the story of Homer Bigart. Homer was one of the best newsmen of his day. What makes his story so special is he spent the majority of his life at war, constantly risking his life to let the rest of the world know what was happening. A lot of times, Homer took no more shelter or food then the troops. Homer showed his heroism by laying his life on the line for other people and not thinking of himself as above other people because he lived under same conditions as the soldiers. Both of these men's stories are examples of a heroes story being uplifting.
A third trait the heroes have in common is that they are all inspirational. Roger Wilkins is an example of a role model. Roger was a leader for the blacks during the Civil Rights movement. Roger was almost killed twice, but he kept fighting even though his life was always in danger. Roger Wilking is a hero for two reasons. The first is that he kept working even though he was constantly being threatened to stop. He is also a hero and a role model because, as a kid, he had a very tough childhood he grew up in a poor black town, and both his parents had expensive drug habits. Roger overcame this, however, and grew up to become a leader and help thousands of people. A second example of these heroes as role models is Soong Chingling. She housed run away communists during the Cultural Revolution of China. She is considered a hero because she put her life in danger every time she took in another communist but she housed them anyway. As you can see, in both the stories of Soong Chingling and Roger Wilkins the hero is inspirational.
In conclusion, the people portrayed in the book Heroes Of My Time are often unknown, uplifting, and are inspirational. All of these people are undoubtedly heroes. These are only some of the people addressed in the book there are many others whose stories are just as inspirational. The book is an outstanding piece of literature. It's very uplifting but you can also learn something about the worlds history from it.