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Defender of the Faith: William Jennings Bryan: The Last Decade, 1915–1925
“lt is doubtful that William Jennings Bryan, who always maintained that a man must be judged by his life as a whole and not by any one part of it, would have approved of a study which concentrated exclusively upon the years between his resignation from W'oodrow Wilson’s Cabinet in June 1915 and his death in Dayton, Tennessee, in July 1925. Yet such a study has long been needed, for the fact is that Bryan has been judged by just these years. . . . “Bryan, especially in the latter stages of his career, has been too often judged and too little understood. The desire to understand him and those he spoke for is the spirit that I hope informs every page of this volume. This is not to maintain that there are no judgments in this work; there are. I am not naive enough to think that I could divest myself completely of my own age and my own beliefs, and these come through again and again. But I have striven to keep them subordinate to the basic purpose of this study Which, to repeat myself, is not judgment but comprehension."
400 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 1987
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About the author
Lawrence W. Levine
21 books18 followersLawrence William Levine was a celebrated American historian. He was born in Manhattan and died in Berkeley, California.
A model of the engaged scholar throughout his life, Levine lived both his scholarship and his politics. From the very outset, he immersed himself in the political life of Berkeley – in, for example, a sleep-in in the rotunda of the state capitol in Sacramento to press for fair housing legislation, and the sit-ins in Berkeley organized by CORE to force stores to hire black people.
He participated in the march from Selma to Montgomery, expressing his solidarity with the civil rights movement. During the Free Speech upheaval at Berkeley, he came to the defense of students protesting a ban on political activity on campus in support of the civil rights movement.
He received numerous awards and accolades over the course of his career, most of which was spent in the History Department at the University of California, Berkeley.
Among the honors bestowed upon him were a MacArthur Prize Fellowship in 1983, election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1985, election as President of the Organization of American Historians in 1992, recognition as a Guggenheim Fellow in 1994, the 2005 Distinguished Scholar Award from the American Historical Association, and the posthumous designation of the Lawrence W. Levine Award, which is given annually by the OAH to the author of the best book in American cultural history.
His books include:
• Defender of the Faith: William Jennings Bryan, the Last Decade, 1915-1925. Oxford University Press, 1965.
• Black Culture and Black Consciousness. Oxford University Press, 1978.
• Highbrow/Lowbrow. Harvard University Press, 1990.
• The Unpredictable Past. Oxford University Press, 1993.
• The Opening of the American Mind. Beacon Press, 1997.
• [with Cornelia R. Levine] The people and the President: America's Conversation with FDR. Beacon Press, 2002.
A model of the engaged scholar throughout his life, Levine lived both his scholarship and his politics. From the very outset, he immersed himself in the political life of Berkeley – in, for example, a sleep-in in the rotunda of the state capitol in Sacramento to press for fair housing legislation, and the sit-ins in Berkeley organized by CORE to force stores to hire black people.
He participated in the march from Selma to Montgomery, expressing his solidarity with the civil rights movement. During the Free Speech upheaval at Berkeley, he came to the defense of students protesting a ban on political activity on campus in support of the civil rights movement.
He received numerous awards and accolades over the course of his career, most of which was spent in the History Department at the University of California, Berkeley.
Among the honors bestowed upon him were a MacArthur Prize Fellowship in 1983, election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1985, election as President of the Organization of American Historians in 1992, recognition as a Guggenheim Fellow in 1994, the 2005 Distinguished Scholar Award from the American Historical Association, and the posthumous designation of the Lawrence W. Levine Award, which is given annually by the OAH to the author of the best book in American cultural history.
His books include:
• Defender of the Faith: William Jennings Bryan, the Last Decade, 1915-1925. Oxford University Press, 1965.
• Black Culture and Black Consciousness. Oxford University Press, 1978.
• Highbrow/Lowbrow. Harvard University Press, 1990.
• The Unpredictable Past. Oxford University Press, 1993.
• The Opening of the American Mind. Beacon Press, 1997.
• [with Cornelia R. Levine] The people and the President: America's Conversation with FDR. Beacon Press, 2002.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
August 3, 2024
A GENERALLY SYMPATHETIC PORTRAIT OF BRYAN'S FINAL YEARS
William Jennings Bryan (1860-1925) was a leading American politician from the 1890s until his death, who was known as "The Great Commoner." At the time this book was published in 1965, author Lawrence Levine was a professor of history at UC Berkeley. Levine wrote in the Preface, "I have written what amounts to a public life of Bryan. I have been forced to do so ... [because] there is very little of a personal nature relating to Bryan in his own papers... Bryan almost totally lacked any introspective quality; he never questioned his own actions... The public Bryan, I am convinced, was the only Bryan there was." (Pg. viii-ix)
He notes, "Fundamentalism was a part of Bryan's intellectual equipment long before Darwinian evolution held the center of his attention." (Pg. 28) During WWI, he suggests that "if Bryan found it impossible to acquiesce in every act of the Allies, he found it equally impossible to join in the spirit of hatred which was being manufactured against Germany... Even war itself could not transform Bryan into a very effective hater." (Pg. 98) He states that "Bryan had declared that the three great reforms of the age were peace, prohibition, and woman suffrage." (Pg. 102)
He argues, "The Bryan of the Twenties has been pictured so often as a bitter, disillusioned old man wholly engaged in the crusade for a literal interpretation of the Bible... that it is difficult to see him in a different light. Indeed, in view of the mood of postwar America, the despair and division prevailing among the progressive ranks, and Bryan's own rebuff by the Democratic party, the motives for his abandonment of the cause of political and economic reform are present, but, in fact, no such abandonment took place... While the new decade saw Bryan lend his voice and prestige to the rising tide of fundamentalist fervor, he continued to espouse the reforms with which his name has become identified." (Pg. 181)
He observes, "Bryan was never a politician pure and simple... Throughout his career there is evidence that he frequently expected and perhaps even desired martyrdom for the cause." (Pg. 244-245) He argues, "in discussing the creation, Bryan admitted that the six days described in the Bible were probably not literal days but periods which might have encompassed millions of years. For the first time it became evident to many of Bryan's followers that their leader did not accept the Bible literally at all times... Bryan did not enter the fundamentalist movement primarily to defend the literal word of the Bible... [but] only in those areas where such an interpretation could help close the door upon a theory which he felt would have pernicious results for mankind." (Pg. 349)
Bryan is often dismissed these days as an ignorant wacko and creationist zealot; but Levine's book shows a much more complex and nuanced man.
William Jennings Bryan (1860-1925) was a leading American politician from the 1890s until his death, who was known as "The Great Commoner." At the time this book was published in 1965, author Lawrence Levine was a professor of history at UC Berkeley. Levine wrote in the Preface, "I have written what amounts to a public life of Bryan. I have been forced to do so ... [because] there is very little of a personal nature relating to Bryan in his own papers... Bryan almost totally lacked any introspective quality; he never questioned his own actions... The public Bryan, I am convinced, was the only Bryan there was." (Pg. viii-ix)
He notes, "Fundamentalism was a part of Bryan's intellectual equipment long before Darwinian evolution held the center of his attention." (Pg. 28) During WWI, he suggests that "if Bryan found it impossible to acquiesce in every act of the Allies, he found it equally impossible to join in the spirit of hatred which was being manufactured against Germany... Even war itself could not transform Bryan into a very effective hater." (Pg. 98) He states that "Bryan had declared that the three great reforms of the age were peace, prohibition, and woman suffrage." (Pg. 102)
He argues, "The Bryan of the Twenties has been pictured so often as a bitter, disillusioned old man wholly engaged in the crusade for a literal interpretation of the Bible... that it is difficult to see him in a different light. Indeed, in view of the mood of postwar America, the despair and division prevailing among the progressive ranks, and Bryan's own rebuff by the Democratic party, the motives for his abandonment of the cause of political and economic reform are present, but, in fact, no such abandonment took place... While the new decade saw Bryan lend his voice and prestige to the rising tide of fundamentalist fervor, he continued to espouse the reforms with which his name has become identified." (Pg. 181)
He observes, "Bryan was never a politician pure and simple... Throughout his career there is evidence that he frequently expected and perhaps even desired martyrdom for the cause." (Pg. 244-245) He argues, "in discussing the creation, Bryan admitted that the six days described in the Bible were probably not literal days but periods which might have encompassed millions of years. For the first time it became evident to many of Bryan's followers that their leader did not accept the Bible literally at all times... Bryan did not enter the fundamentalist movement primarily to defend the literal word of the Bible... [but] only in those areas where such an interpretation could help close the door upon a theory which he felt would have pernicious results for mankind." (Pg. 349)
Bryan is often dismissed these days as an ignorant wacko and creationist zealot; but Levine's book shows a much more complex and nuanced man.
June 28, 2010
I now feel much more enlightened on the narrow-mindedness of Bryan. Not that I disagree with the major components of his faith, but I do disagree with his methods. Levine said it best at the end of his work, "And if his final years ended in tragedy, it was not the tragedy of a good man gone bad, but the tragedy of a good faith too blindly held and too uncritically applied." I fear many Christians are in danger of this today. It was interesting to learn that 2 years prior to the Scopes trial, Darrow and asked Bryan all of the same questions which he asked Bryan on the stand through a newspaper magazine. Bryan refused to answer them simply because he knew Darrow to be wrong. Thanks to that, he made Christianity look foolish in public!
September 19, 2013
I was a student of Larry Levine, and I must admit he was much better in person. A very dear soul, and I do miss him. An interesting topic.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews