Lead Time : A Journalist's Education [Hardcover]

Garry Wills (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 24, 1983

The essential Garry Wills, Lead Time offers a provocative view of a pivotal era in America from one of our most esteemed historians. In this collection of essays, written between 1968 and 1982, Wills explores American culture, politics, and mores, and demonstrates his astute and always interesting approach to his subjects, including Vietnam, Richard Nixon, Muhammad Ali, Pope John Paul II, and Ronald Reagan. Newly reissued with a new preface, this is a must-read from “a mind that likes to range beyond the usual boundaries of periodical journalism” (New York Times).

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

GARRY WILLS, a distinguished historian and critic, is the author of numerous books, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning Lincoln at Gettysburg, Saint Augustine, and the best-selling Why I Am a Catholic. A regular contributor to the New York Review of Books, he has won many awards, among them two National Book Critics Circle Awards and the 1998 National Medal for the Humanities. He is a history professor emeritus at Northwestern University.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 389 pages
• Publisher: Doubleday; 1st edition (May 24, 1983)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385176953
• ISBN-13: 978-0385176958
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.9 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,408,502 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Garry Wills is one of the most respected writers on religion today. He is the author of Saint Augustine's Childhood, Saint Augustine's Memory, and Saint Augustine's Sin, the first three volumes in this series, as well as the Penguin Lives biography Saint Augustine. His other books include "Negro President": Jefferson and the Slave Power, Why I Am a Catholic, Papal Sin, and Lincoln at Gettysburg, which won the Pulitzer Prize.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Heavy going, November 25, 2006

By 

Shalom Freedman "Shalom Freedman" (Jerusalem,Israel) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Lead Time: A Journalist's Education (Paperback)

Wills is considered one of America's leading intellectual journalists. This collection of essays written from 1968 through 1982 contains for the most part work on political subjects. There are essays on Presidents Carter, Truman, Johnson, Reagan, Ford.There are also essays on Bobby Baker, Daniel Patrick Monynihan, George Wallace, Bert Lance, Jerry Brown. There are essays on McCarthyism, Alger Hiss , Dorothy Day, Pope John Paul 2. Also essays on 'athletes'Muhammed Ali, Shirley Verret, Raymond Berry, Beverly Sills.

I especially enjoyed the essay on Ali which was a review of books by Wilfred Sheed, and Norman Mailer. In it Wills explains how Ali used his eyes, to control the fight. In an essay on Lyndon Johnson Wills gives a description of an overpowering figure who got what he wanted from people through relentless pressure.

I must admit that I expected a bit more from the essays in terms of flair and wit. For journalistic pieces they read a bit heavily.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lead Time: A Journalist's Education, March 15, 2005

By 

Ronald Kozar (Dayton, Ohio) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Lead Time : A Journalist's Education (Mass Market Paperback)

I love this book. It is a collection of pieces by Wills that ran in various magazines, mostly in the 1970's. The topics run a wide gamut, and all of them are written with Wills's special mix of intellectuality, clarity, and verve. The chapters I re-read the most are those on Harry Truman (whom Wills debunks as a clod and party-machine hack trying to pass himself off to history as a homemade scholar who routinely dressed down stuffed shirts like MacArthur), Lyndon Johnson (the article on whom contains some of the most cerebral bathroom humor you'll ever read, and which is all the more hilarious for being true), and "The Pope in America" (a caustic review of the papophilia that gripped journalists during John Paul II's first visit to the US).