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Shop nowAmerican Midnight
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Learn moreFrom legendary historian Adam Hochschild, a groundbreaking reassessment of the overlooked but startlingly resonant period between World War I and the Roaring Twenties, when the foundations of American democracy were threated by war, pandemic, and violence fueled by battles over race, immigration, and the rights of labor
"A riveting, resonant account of the fragility of freedom.ââKirkus, STARRED review
The nation was on the brink. Mobs burned Black churches to the ground. Courts threw thousands of people into prison for opinions they voicedâin one notable case, only in private. Self-appointed vigilantes executed tens of thousands of citizensâ arrests. Some seventy-five newspapers and magazines were banned from the mail and forced to close. When the government stepped in, it was often to fan the flames. Â
This was America during and after the Great War: a brief but appalling era blighted by lynchings, censorship, and the sadistic, sometimes fatal abuse of conscientious objectors in military prisonsâa time whose toxic currents of racism, nativism, red-baiting, and contempt for the rule of law then flowed directly through the intervening decades to poison our own. It was a tumultuous period defined by a diverse and colorful cast of characters, some of whom fueled the injustice while others fought against it: from the sphinxlike Woodrow Wilson, to the fiery antiwar advocates Kate Richards OâHare and Emma Goldman, to labor champion Eugene Debs, to a little-known but ambitious bureaucrat named J. Edgar Hoover, and to an outspoken leftwing agitatorâwho was in fact Hooverâs star undercover agent. It is a time that we have mostly forgotten about, until now.Â
In American Midnight, award-winning historian Adam Hochschild brings alive the horrifying yet inspiring four years following the U.S. entry into the First World War, spotlighting forgotten repression while celebrating an unforgettable set of Americans who strove to fix their fractured countryâand showing how their struggles still guide us today. Â
Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.
ADAM HOCHSCHILD is the author of eleven books. King Leopoldâs Ghost was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, as was To End All Wars. His Bury the Chains was a finalist for the National Book Award and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and PEN USA Literary Award. He lives in Berkeley, California.