Adam Hochschild: American Midnight
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- Опубліковано 14 жов 2024
- Adam Hochschild returns to The Commonwealth Club with his revelatory new account of a pivotal but neglected period in American history: World War I and its stormy aftermath, when bloodshed and repression on the home front nearly doomed American democracy.
The nation was on the brink. Angry mobs burned Black churches to the ground and chased down pacifists and immigrants. Well over a thousand men and women were jailed solely for what they had written or said, even in private. An astonishing 250,000 people joined a nationwide vigilante group-sponsored by the Department of Justice.
This was America during and after the Great War: a brief but appalling era blighted by torture, censorship, and killings. Hochschild brings to life this troubled period, which stretched from 1917 to 1921, through the interwoven tales of some well-known characters, like the sphinxlike Woodrow Wilson and the ambitious young bureaucrat J. Edgar Hoover, and of other less-familiar characters, like the fiery antiwar advocate Kate Richards O’Hare and the outspoken Leo Wendell, a labor radical who was frequently arrested and wholly trusted by his comrades-but who was in fact Hoover’s star undercover agent.
A groundbreaking work of narrative history, American Midnight recalls these horrifying yet inspiring four years, when some brave Americans strove to keep their fractured country democratic, while ruthless others stimulated toxic currents of racism, nativism, red-baiting and contempt for the rule of law-poisons that all feel ominously familiar today.
October 13, 2022
Hochschild photo courtesy the author; background of main image is detail from cover of American Midnight.
Speakers
Adam Hochschild
Historian; Lecturer, Graduate School of Journalism, University of California Berkeley; Author, American Midnight: The Great War, A Violent Peace, and Democracy's Forgotten Crisis
In Conversation with George Hammond
Author, Conversations With Socrates
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Thank you for bringing this to the American attention. I was born in 1936, a big-eared child who listened a lot to what adults were saying - and I know that my parents generation (born 1906 - married in 1932, aware, educated young midwesterners ) and their parents and siblings were deeply marked by many pieces of this complex chaos. Also, in my own research of that era of black history, I was aware of much of the worst of the black history, but hadn't really put together the complexity of convergences that you have laid out in this presentation. Somehow the fact that we managed to get through this gives me a ray of hope that we just might manage to get through this present godawful mess. I look forward to reading your book.
I look forward to reading more of your comments- thank you
I look forward to reading more of your comments- thank you
Beautifully written. you must be a writer, Betti
I am not as optimistic as you. For one, the playing field would be dramatically different in our economy and financial world now, if Wilson would have died in the early 20th Century. That hypothetical trajectory would likely have allowed the US Labor Movement to push thru and achieve legitimate national status. Wilson's persistent abuse of labor maimed it and stunted its ambition to dominate workplace power. His capitalist authoritarianism and propaganda, in the name of democracy, worked to distort the understanding that generations of Americans born after the mid-20th Century have about Labor (or shall I just call them The Working Class?). Not the Elon Musks, or the heir-apparent Trumps or, the people who work at a job and produce a service or product that is then sold at premium prices by an Elon Musk (a Walmart, Exxon or Perdue and largely based upon millions of laborers' time and effort). It really should have been a 20th C revolution of our democracy; even more a democracy than today. Not an oligarchy. Clearly Harding stopped the carnage and pulverizing of labor because he saw that the government's repression going any further would have blown the lid off the capitalist pressure cooker and caused that revolution. We are in another Gilded Age. Will the correction involve sharing the burden?
@@rebeccaLV Like you I am much less optimistic about the notion of they all lived happily ever after. Of course what you are failing to recognize is that in this iteration of history - labor will be recognized and appreciated greatly - unfortunately that labor is going to be performed by a machine and aside from the extremely wealthy few - god only knows what we will do / capable of doing . Somehow in all the hysteria / insanity our leaders do not even recognize this looming threat to really civilization / economy of a society .
This unknown, for most, information is sobering & important history! Thank you
This history is spot on. We need to learn and embrace our mistakes or we'll never move forward as a country or as a people.
Started reading it last night. Could barely put it down. Adam, you have done it again
My most memorable experience of my History Class in High School 1974 was the lessons on the Holocaust!!!
To this day I can still remember the films of Jewish People so thin and malnourished having been dumped in ditches and then being burned, some still Alive.
Thank you Adam and Commonwealth Club.
This isn't just America's,but humanity's worst angels. A just and humane constitutional democratic republic doesn't just happen. The struggle continues,and only an honest appraisal of our history can bring the maturity and wisdom demanded to approach a more perfect union. When we betray our own ideals,we pay the price for generations.
All things excellent are by their nature difficult and rare. -Baruch Spinoza
Thank you for the enlightened history.
Excellent talk. There seems to be several books about the living conditions in the USA and the lead- up to WWII, with fewer books describing conditions in the US, such as labor, racial and Constitutional violations inside the America in the years right before the first World War. This book, American Midnight, sounds fascinating. Fun fact: Adam Hochschild sounds a lot like Ted Koppel.
I’m reading this now. I taught King Leopold’s Ghost. It haunts me every day.
Great lecture. Thank you.
Thank you for your work and investigation of this era!
Fascinating exploration of a time of great turmoil. Thank you so much for posting.
History with truth is too difficult for most Americans to handle. Keep up the good expose of the past!
you are so correct Gary - heaven help having a book like this in Florida , I seriously would be concerned that the author might be arrested
Every time I hear more about the real history of our country I feel dumbfounded
Same - I guess that’s Y they ban history
Same!
Have you ever watched a doc/done research on Potus Andrew Jackson? OH! MY! WORD! I knew #45 emulates Ronald Reagan। , but he WAY more emulates JACKSON. Jackson was so evil। he may have even WORSE than #45.
(MAY have).
Random thought: We hear: "Donald Tru will go down in history as one of the worst" & about who will be on the wrong side of history.
(?????????)
I think even FEWER ppl will be interested in history at that point, so what does it matter??? (Rhetorical question) 😮💨.
Don't get pessimistic or overly optimistic.... we just have work to do to make our world better. Gen. Swartzcroft said about Iraq that he hadn't killed anybody, rather moved them onto meet their maker. That bullshit has to stop.
Howard Zinn covered much of this in his People’s History of the United States….should be taught in schools.
Sure - the republicans r not allowing this
Very insightful history talk. However, why did he overlook the women’s suffrage movement? This was very active at this time.
As is so often Said..History REPEATS itself..
If you were to imagine some of the brutality that took place 100 years ago in todays context, it would be practically unthinkable
Are you sure? Didn't we just export the greatest brutalities? Let that be done in other countries for our benefit and out of sight and out of mind.
Good to know. We need to see. Each other. Understanding requires a new perspective of our history. Thank you!
We were not told this history. That tells me something right there. Truth sounds in the heart. My chakras light up!
Guess what we are working forward.
About the "Spies are listening"-Poster: I think the face is a relative adequate portrait of German emperor Kaiser Wilhelm II. who had a distinctive nose judging by other contemporary portraits. Without the author pointing out a "jewish nose" I would have not been able to see this.
ADAM HOCHSCHILD: What an extremely impressive individual!! 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
Crazy story. We need this history front and center.
So much for the Oft Quoted "Freedom Of Speech"
More like, "Freedom of speech for me and not for you."
So poignant, for these times right now. United we stand divided we fall.
Vote 🗳
That business recognized the success of the Creel commission was giant. Great Talk, thank you. Lawson di ransom Canyon
Wow - amazing discussion! Great questions from the audience!
Excellent talk. Thanks so much. From NZ
It didn't get anywhere near this bad but how many of us remember the war on terror after 9/11??? "Freedom Fries" "Love it or leave it" "You're either with us or with the terrorists" Dixiechicks being shunned.
Scary. Thank you.
Fascinating to hear the exposing of this information, but of course there is MORE. There is ALWAYS More. There are more sides to a Brilliant Cut than most folks know.
8:15 I just have to add for reasons that will be immediately obvious, sauerkraut became _liberty cabbage._
Just picked up the book, I'm sure it will be as great/poignant/relevant as always and as the rest of Adam's library, thanks!
Thank you, again.
10:27 Senator Robert La Follette looks like Jordan Peterson 🤪‼️
Who cares?
Excellent! Bravo!!!
This fellow sounds so much like Ted Koppel. A terrific speaker. Calm, eriodite offering of just one era of historic evil by mob.
Amazing.
Bravo 🙏😇🇺🇲
I do not agree that employers found that women could do a better job compared to men. Employers did some studies and found 'cheaper' labor with less complaints and resistance compared with men, which is similar to child labor.
First time I ever heard all this. I had to visit the Jackson VA hospital in Mississippi once and the main rode there on is Woodrow Wilson BLVD!
Thank you.
Adam.... from 20 people at the physical talk to 30,ooo + views online. Then Mark Twains quote and Spinozas' in the comments.... I am flying high. All this excitement started for me with Howard Zinn and his Play "The People Speak". Wonderful stories from the losers of so many of these battles....highly recommended.
where is the history of Alice Paul and the suffragist movement in the 19th amendment and the suffering that took place leading up to those changes?
Mark Twain? and Teddy Roosevelt? Maybe some old ideas will inspire more humanity. Especially, if they have had to incarnate white way too many times and may neeed a refresher.
Wild cards! May they show the dark, by shining a light where ever we need to have it.Women! He's talking to every women.
Hour Of The Wolf.
Oh, oh, oh what a lovely war. The time between the wars was another time of boom and bust,
War is Hell. - General Tecumseh Sherman
There is nothing new under the sun.
Did those Europeans with loyalty to the strong man leadership immigrate to the Americas and other European countries carrying the cult culture with them .
Familiar all.
Trumps father and heritage
Purdy smart huh?
... Home of the Free ... Really ? ...
How about some citations that distinguish your factual assertions from your apparently cherry picked political opinions? I guess the traditions of Howard Zinn live on... disappointing Commonwealth Club.
How about you buy and read the book?
If you disagree, then post your historical sources. It is as simple as that. I guess the tradition of Spiro Agnew ranting about pointy headed liberals lives on.
Sure Turd, sure.
We will not be here in 100 years. Wake Up!
I doubt we make it to 2050, but if we do it will be ugly beyond belief