Written into History: Pulitzer Prize Reporting of the Twentieth Century from The New York Times [Hardcover]

Anthony Lewis (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 16, 2001

With each news day, history unfolds as steadfast journalists uncover facts and public opinion. Drawn from the New York Times's archive of an unparalleled seventy-nine Pulitzer Prizes, Written Into History offers a fascinating record of the twentieth century.

The Times's award-winning reports range from Antarctic dispatches on the Byrd expedition to the eyewitness account of the atomic bomb, from the First Amendment battle to publish the Pentagon Papers to the personal narrative of an interracial friendship. Pulitzer Prize winner Anthony Lewis culled through the newspaper's most acclaimed writing to chronicle life and history as it was happening, with such highlights as Otto Tolischus on Hitler, David Halberstam on Vietnam, J. Anthony Lukas on hippies, and Anna Quindlen on AIDS.
Lewis tells the stories behind the stories, describing journalism's changing role in the world. For armchair historians and aspiring reporters, this is a rich and memorable portrait of a century by the men and women who most artfully observed it.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Nearly a century has passed since the newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer endowed the journalism prize that bears his name, observing, "Our Republic and its press will rise or fall together. An able, disinterested, public-spirited press, with trained intelligence to known the right and the courage to do it, can preserve the public virtue without which popular government is a sham and a mockery." Over that period, The New York Times and its writers have taken more Pulitzer prizes than any other newspaper, and the sampling of their work that Anthony Lewis offers in this collection ably shows why this should be so.

Taking in book reviews, commentaries on art and architecture, editorials, news pieces, and work that falls into the comparatively new genre of "news analysis," that sampling is more than a celebration of a single newspaper, influential though it may be; it is also a record of historical events as they have unfolded. An entry by Harrison Salisbury, for example, documents the Soviet Gulag system, "so routine, ordinary, and common ... that local residents seem not to have the slightest embarrassment about such phenomena." Another, by Sydney Schanberg, renders a surreal slice-of-life portrait of a Cambodian town undergoing round-the-clock shelling. Still another, by Nicholas Kristof, relates the tragedy of Tiananmen Square as "bullets swooshed overhead or glanced off buildings." Closer to home, the anthology also includes pieces on race relations in America, now-forgotten crimes, and the Reagan-era initiative to build the "Star Wars" antimissile system.

For readers with an interest in world history, contemporary affairs, and good writing alike, Lewis's anthology offers many rewards. --Gregory McNamee

From Publishers Weekly

Lewis (Gideon's Trumpet) a writer with the New York Times for nearly five decades and himself a two-time Pulitzer winner succeeds in presenting some of the world's best recent journalism. This is a book best dipped into for the pleasure of its writing. There are plenty of both prominent and almost-forgotten stories: "Red" Smith on the near-bankruptcy of New York City in the 1970s, Max Frankel on Nixon's 1972 visit to China, Linda Greenhouse on failed Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork. Lewis's fine introductory essay describes the post-Vietnam transformation of American journalism. The war and Watergate, he contends, made the press more skeptical of those in power and more confrontational in tone. Pulitzer Prizes increasingly went to fearless reporters like David Halberstam, whose tragically prescient analysis, in 1963, of the worsening situation in Vietnam constitutes one of the highlights of this book. The American military in Vietnam, wrote Halberstam, faced a bloody quagmire, "a situation like the one that defeated the French in the 1945-54 Indochinese war." Another highlight is Lewis's own analysis of the Warren court, which moved aggressively to "federalize" legal protections in the areas of civil rights and criminal due process. It's a paragon of accessible legal writing. Perhaps the best, and certainly the most important, piece in the collection is Mirta Ojito's unforgettable recent story of two Cuban immigrants, one black and one white and how race comes to define and divide the two friends once they move to Miami. The piece is everything great journalism should be: empathetic, unmistakably relevant and a challenge to our basic ideals. For anyone interested in recent history or journalism at its best, this book will prove worthwhile. Agent, the Wylie Agency.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Times Books; 1st edition (October 16, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 080506849X
• ISBN-13: 978-0805068498
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,509,573 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Reflections of the Twentieth Century, February 12, 2002

By 

Craig L. Howe "The Pointed Pundit" (Darien, CT United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Written into History: Pulitzer Prize Reporting of the Twentieth Century from The New York Times (Hardcover)

In his 1904, Joseph Pulitzer left $2 million to Columbia University to establish a journalism school.

Believing an "able, disinterested, public spirited press, with trained intelligence to know the right and the courage to do it, can preserve the public virtue without which the popular government is a sham and a mockery," he reserved 25 per cent of the amount for prizes to reward excellence in the field.

During the twentieth century's remaining years The New York Times won 81 of those prizes. In his introductory essay and story forwards, the editor, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Anthony Lewis relates the stories behind the stories and documents journalism's evolving role in society. For the reader, a vivid, moving portrait of the century emerges, as told by a group of talented, dedicated observers.

Included in a section entitled "What the Government Didn't Want You to Know," David Halberstam's December, 1963 think piece on the Vietcong growing strength. Published 15 months before President Lyndon Johnson committed hundreds of thousands of U.S troops to assume the brunt of the fighting from the South Vietnamese.

In 1967, J. Anthony Lukas exposed a growing gap between children and their parents in "The Two Worlds of Linda Fitzpatrick," a well-to-do Connecticut girl who was found murdered in Greenwich Village with a hippie friend. The story, which contrasted her privileged up-bringing with her squalid, drug-ridden lifestyle, caused numerous families to reconsider this wide spread and dangerous split.

Dave Anderson won the prize 1980 for his column on George Steinbrenner's ceremonious - complete with finger food for the assembled press -- firing of Yankee manager Dick Howser.

It is tough to ignore the prizes for commentary won by Anna Quindlen on AIDS and Russell Baker's two prizes for being serious and his reflections on working with Norman Rockwell.

Journalism maybe rift with faults, but the stories contained in this volume demonstrate what results when gifted, hardworking journalists follow their noble ambitions and dreams.