Witness to a Century: Encounters with the Noted, the Notorious, and the Three SOBs [Hardcover]

George Seldes (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 12, 1987

"This extraordinary book . . . is a reminder . . . of the sins of suppression and untruth that have been and can be committed in the name of American journalism . . . One of the last first-person statements from a generation that included Hitler, Nehru, and Mao . . . and Seldes too." --Columbia Journalism Review

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Former correspondent for the Chicago Tribune in a career that spanned 70 years, Seldes had a knack for getting the story. Field Marshall Hindenburg, for example, whom Seldes interviewed just after Armistice Day, broke down and cried as he admitted that the Germans were beaten fair and square on the battlefield. This entertaining journalistic memoir is packed with such telling anecdotes. Emma Goldman, at breakfast, chats with Seldes about how she introduced bobbed hair to women in America, and Theodore Dreiser debates Alexander Kerensky over whether there is a special Russian soul. We get firsthand glimpses of Ralph Nader, Tito, Ring Lardner, George Patton, H. G. Wells, Sinclair Lewis, Oskar Kokoschka, William Jennings Bryan, Freud, Trotsky. Seldes, now 96 and living in Vermont, also writes of the McCarthy era when his own magazine, In fact, was red-baited and destroyed. His fear that the press is ever in danger of serving special interests informs this lively chronicle.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 490 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books; 1st edition (April 12, 1987)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345331818
• ISBN-13: 978-0345331816
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.5 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,006,402 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Apt Title, July 5, 2002

By 

Douglas Doepke (Claremont, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Witness to a Century: Encounters with the Noted, the Notorious, and the Three SOBs (Paperback)

The author George Seldes is a name unknown to the vast majority of Americans, including those who read newspapers. Yet his pioneering newsletter In Fact, along with a supreme dedication to jounalistic integrity and Jeffersonian ideals, qualify him as one of the key journalists of the 20th century. He set the standards that many liberal muckrakers of today work to emulate, including, for example, the late and more widely known I.F. Stone.

The book's title Witness to a Century is an apt one. As a foreign correspondent, he had an uncanny knack for being at the right places at the right time while history was being made. His recollections of such key figures as Mussolini, Lenin, Tito, Mc Carthy, Roosevelt, and others are priceless. It's doubtful that any one person non-head of state met with as many shapers of history as Seldes, even as the book profiles his many encounters with cultural figures of the day: Picasso, Sinclair Lewis, Ford Maddox Ford, and the Paris literary scene of the 1920's. With this stellar background, readers could expect an exceptional reminiscence on the century past. However, I was somewhat disappointed in the result. Fellow reviewer Goldberg points out how the last two chapters tend to fade, and he is correct. In fact, the book as a whole seems rather loose and disjointed, with little segue from one chapter to the next other than a rough timeline. And while many of the personal portraits remain vivid and edifying--von Hindenburg weeping over Germany's defeat by fresh American troops--the work as a whole is the result of a distinguished journalist past his prime. Still and all, his observations on the press reporting of his day may surprise some readers. Managed news accounts, the result of kowtowing to wealth and power, was even more flagrant in his day than now, suggesting, I suppose, some refinement of method. There is material here for several volumes, and I suspect that were he 20 years younger, such would have been the result. As it stands, the work is more a compilation of loose snapshots, than in-depth portraits.

Nonetheless, no historian of the 20th century, amateur or professional, can afford to pass up such primary material. Seldes was not only an outstanding jounalist, but as the record shows, an outstanding American as well. Regretably, his like seems to have faded from the scene, leaving mainstream journalism to generation after generation of pack-following pygmies.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting, Readable, Informative, September 27, 2001

By 

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

This review is from: Witness to a Century: Encounters With the Noted, the Notorious and the Three Sob's (G K Hall Large Print Book Series) (Hardcover)

Seldes primarily describes his years as a foreign correspondent in this solid memoir. Seldes began as a cub reporter for the Pittsburgh Leader in 1909, but was soon overseas covering World War One, and then Weimar Germany, Bolshevik Russia, Fascist Italy, and the Spanish Civil War. I liked the author's analysis, not to mention his portraits of such figures as Generals Pershing and Hindenburg, Mussolini, Lenin, Trotsky, etc. Seldes scorns the era's conservative publishers for failing to cover many important issues, a problem he combated with his newsletter IN FACT from 1940-50. Sadly, today's corporate media barons also avoid certain issues. I gave the book four stars because the last chapters tend to fade - Seldes wrote them while in his mid-90's. Still, WITNESS TO A CENTURY provides an excellent look at many events that helped shape today's world.

George Seldes (1890-1995) was an outstanding journalist, one who respected truth until the day he passed at age 104. As his obituary noted, nearly until the end he was still discussing world events with admirers who phoned or visited his home in rural Vermont.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating perspective on events that formed our century., July 28, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Witness to a Century: Encounters with the Noted, the Notorious, and the Three SOBs (Paperback)

Seldes, as usual,gives a clear,no holds barred account of the events that formed our world as it is presently constituted. He discusses forces that,usually unmentioned, have molded our world outlook. His historical anecdotes are gems, and to anyone reading this book many landmark events in history will never look the same.