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The Nat Hentoff Reader

Product ID : 44322951


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About The Nat Hentoff Reader

Product Description From the Bill of Rights, freedom of speech, and civil rights to jazz, blues and country music, Nat Hentoff has written about American life for decades, in the Atlantic Monthly, the New Yorker, the Village Voice, the Wall Street Journal, and JazzTimes, among countless other publications. The New York Times has hailed Hentoff's work as "an invigorating and entertaining reminder of why freedom of expression matters." The Washington Post Book World has called Hentoff "an old-fashioned music lover who likes, as Charlie Parker once put it, 'to listen to the stories' that good music tells." Nat Hentoff is a legend.And now, for the first time, here are his most important writings of the past twenty years—the quintessential Hentoff on everything from Cardinal John O'Connor to Merle Haggard, racism and political correctness in the classroom to Lester Young, Dizzy Gillespie to the censorship of Huckleberry Finn. Controversial? You bet. Whatever the topic, The Nat Hentoff Reader shows a man of passion and insight, of streetwise wit and polished eloquence-a true American original. From Publishers Weekly It becomes clear from this collection of his writings over the past 25 years that Hentoff iconoclast, muckraker and critic par excellence has been remarkably consistent in his beliefs. And these beliefs come down to an absolute insistence that human freedom and the right of individual expression are sacrosanct, and that any challenge to them whether from the left or right is to be resisted. Many of the pieces here thus focus on First Amendment issues from the banning of books and the censoring of student newspapers in high schools, to community attacks on a grade school teacher as being a Satanist for reading her students fairy tales. He also lashes out at college campuses where demands for political correctness and racial sensitivity have led to the banning of controversial speakers and the pillorying of dedicated professors for innocent remarks interpreted as racist. But he also confronts America's continuing struggle with race, with pieces on persistent school segregation, the neglect of black crime victims by the mainstream press, and black anti-Semitism. His most loving pieces, however, are portraits of musicians Lester Young, Dizzy Gillespie, Louis Armstrong, even Merle Haggard. Risk takers all, such artists personify what unbridled voices can create. As the World Trade Center lies in ruins, Hentoff offers an uncannily timely reminder of the care that must be taken in the protection of rights. He also offers comfort. This from Haggard: "When it looks like everything else is breaking up in the country and in the world, and in your own life, I keep thinking that maybe music will be the last thing to go down." Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc. From Booklist For nearly 50 years, Hentoff has been sounding off in print--in magazines such as the Atlantic Monthly, the New Yorker, and Jazz Times; as a columnist for the Village Voice, Editor and Publisher, and Legal Times; and in books on his obsessions: jazz and the U.S. Constitution. In this volume, Hentoff gathers nearly three dozen pieces that demonstrate the range of his interests and the passion of his voice. Part 1, "The Condition of Liberty," addresses constitutional issues, particularly free speech. Part 2, "The Passion of Creation," celebrates artists famous and obscure: Lenny Bruce, Lester Young, Otis Spann, clarinetist George Lewis, Dizzy Gillespie, Merle Haggard, trumpet player Bryan Shaw, cornetist Ruby Braff, and television pioneer Robert Herridge. In Part 3, Hentoff explores "The Persistence of Race," while in Part 4, he takes on "The Beast of Politics." Many readers will alternate between loving Hentoff and hating him. Even those who disagree with him, however, will grant that Hentoff expresses his firmly held opinions powerfully and even eloquently. Mary Carroll Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved