The Chief: The Life of William Randolph Hearst
Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000. First Printing. Hardcover. 687 pages, notes, index, some soiling to edges. David Nasaw (born July 18, 1945) is an American author, biographer and historian who specializes in the cultural and social history of early 20th Century America. Nasaw is on the faculty of the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, where he is the Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. Professor of History. In addition to writing numerous scholarly and popular books, he has written for publications such as the Columbia Journalism Review, American Historical Review, American Heritage, Dissent, The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Slate, The London Review of Books, and Conde Nast Traveler. Nasaw has appeared in several documentaries, including The American Experience, 1996, and two episodes of the History Channel's April 2006 miniseries 10 Days That Unexpectedly Changed America: "The Homestead Strike" and "The Assassination of President McKinley". He is cited extensively in the US and British media as an expert on the history of popular entertainment and the news media, and as a critic of American philanthropy. This biography of William Randolph Hearst (1863-1951) is based on hitherto unavailable sources, including Hearst's private papers. William Randolph Hearst (April 29, 1863 – August 14, 1951) was an American newspaper publisher who built the nation's largest newspaper chain and whose methods profoundly influenced the history of American journalism. Hearst entered the publishing business in 1887 after being given control of The San Francisco Examiner by his wealthy father. Moving to New York City, he acquired The New York Journal and engaged in a bitter circulation war with Joseph Pulitzer's New York World that led to the creation of yellow journalism—sensationalized stories featuring crime, corruption, sensation, and sex, and of sometimes dubious veracity. Acquiring more newspapers, Hearst created a chain that numbered nearly 30 papers in major American cities at its peak. He later expanded to magazines, creating the largest newspaper and magazine business in the world. He was twice elected as a Democrat to the U.S. House of Representatives, and ran unsuccessfully for Mayor of New York City in 1905 and 1909 and for Governor of New York in 1906. Politically he was on the left wing of the Progressive Movement, speaking on behalf of the working class. He controlled the editorial positions and coverage of political news in all his papers and magazines and thereby exercised enormous political influence. He called for war in 1898 against Spain—as did many papers—but he did it in sensational fashion. After 1918, he called for an isolationist foreign policy to avoid any more entanglement in corrupt European affairs. He was at once a militant nationalist, a fierce anti-communist, and deeply suspicious of the League of Nations and of the British, French, Japanese, and Russians. He was a leading supporter of Franklin Roosevelt in 1932-34, but then broke with FDR and became his most prominent enemy on the right. His peak circulation reached 20 million readers a day in the mid 1930s, but he was a bad money manager and was so deeply in debt that most of his assets had to be liquidated in the late 1930s; but he kept his newspapers and magazines. His life story was the main inspiration for Charles Foster Kane, the lead character in Orson Welles's film Citizen Kane. His famous mansion, Hearst Castle, on a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean near San Simeon, is now a State Historical Monument and a National Historic Landmark. Condition: very good / very good.
Keywords: Anti-Semitism, William Randolph Hearst, Louis Mayer, Marion Davies, Motion Pictures, Spanish-American War, Racism, Franklin Roosevelt, Journalism, Newspapers
ISBN: 0395827590
[Book #34758]
Price: $45.00