In Search of History: A Personal Adventure

Want a amazing history lesson from someone that actually lived and grew up into the changes of these times... what a great reflection of the past as a juxtaposition of our present and near future... We now live in a time when people can admit this is the worst economic time since the depression and not freak out... yet! Never hopefully... T.White is also a great writer and journalist.

An incredibly broad overview of one man's very exciting career in journalism, Theodore White's "In Search Of History" puts us at his shoulder as he explores war-torn China and reconstructed Europe, does battle with leftist zealots and right-wing hoods, and apotheosizes the ephemerality of the world and the fleeting cast populating it. Any journalist, or one thinking of a career in journalism, owes it to him- or herself to read this. One might subtitle this: "Enough About Those Presidents, Let's Talk About Me." By 1978, he had ceased producing his widely-read and respected "Making Of The President" books, deciding he needed to figure out what it had been all about. Such a scenario would bode ill except White lived an interesting life he shares here with passion and candor, focusing always on what it meant for him to be a journalist, lighting on telling moments in time and raising questions about his own possible shortcomings and oversights that help lift this above most journalist autobiographies. Starting out a poor Jewish boy in Boston during World War I, White was a Horatio Alger story who made his way to Harvard with a gritty combination of hard work and belief in himself and the country that produced him. Though best-known today for "The Making Of" series, White had been a reporter for more than 20 years before that, cutting his teeth at Henry Luce's Time/Life, where the focus was always on individual "makers of history." Though he fell out with Luce, he held fast to that "compelling personality" concept throughout his career, latching on to various figures he met with a curiosity so immersive it bordered on idolatry. "What frightened me then, and frightens me still, is how very few men it takes at the head of any state to give it its character of good or evil, of freedom, tyranny, torture, butchery or benevolence," he writes, reflecting on postwar Germany but taking in the world. For those disposed to accept this viewpoint, White offers vivid profiles of such unique and complex characters as Luce, Chou En-Lai, Chaing K'ai-Chek, Averell Harriman, and especially John F. Kennedy, of whom White says: "Those who knew him well loved him too much...The man I followed wrapped me in such affection that I have never been able completely to escape." Those who note this was part of White's problem have to acknowledge the fact that they, like so many in the last 40 or so years, are drawing on White's own reportage in making their conclusions. What makes White great to read is the apparent absence of anything else interesting going on in his life. He writes a little about women, his first sexual experience and an early wife who kept him working by spending his money. But you get the feeling he was more devoted to us his readers than anyone he knew in his own life. No detail is too small or too squalid for White to bore in on, and stick with long enough to make come alive in our hands, whether it is poverty-stricken children being worked to death in a

This is a wonderful tour of the 20C, to about 1970, by a reporter who followed stories as they emerged in the most important places and with the most powerful people. White was entirely self-made, an energetic and talented man who had some luck but mostly worked very hard. Although many journalists came to scorn White for his nostalgic style late in life - rightfully in my opinion - there is no doubt that early on he was a great reporter of courage and idealism. You see him begin reporting for Luce (and Time) while on a fellowship in China, fresh out of Harvard, when he got into the innermost circle of communist leaders after becoming disillusioned with Chiang Kai Shek. There he met Mao, Zhou EnLai, and scores of others who would go on to great power - the reader feels like he gets to know them personally. He then wrote a bestseller on the experience. In a typical move that showed his nose for a great story and a pioneer of in-depth investigations, White then moved to Paris, where he chronicled the post-war reconstruction under the Marchall Plan. He then returned to the US and started his outstanding series on US elections, the Making of the President. After losing a job at Colliers, and at great financial risk, he made his living almost entirely from books. This is a amazing and trailblazing career, thick with historical detail, but this book is also a memoir that lets you in on what made him tick: he witnessed his father beaten down by the Depression, but heard from him that China would have a revolution that would change the world. This was the source of his original inspiration for China. There are many asides that are both charming and fascinating, such as the time he lost his virginity in China, but also about how he works and what he remembers of certain scenes, such as the moment Zhou EnLai got him to eat pork. Warmly recommended, in particular for aspiring writers (like myself when I read it!).

This is one of those rare authors that can make an exciting history jump off the pages at you. And White was lucky: he saw some of the most interesting events of the 20th century, up close and with access to the principal players. The latter part of the book, where he describes the inner circle of the Kennedy camp on election night, 1960, is one of the best passages I have ever read.

I really LOVE this book, have read it several times! I can't believe one person was able to do all of these fascinating things and tell about it in such an engaging manner. The material in China in WWII is probably the most fascinating and tells stories about the Chinese leadership that most westerners don't know. The McCarthy era and the Kennedy campaign and assasinations also were riveting.