Lessons from a Dark Time and Other Essays

by Adam Hochschild

In this rich collection, bestselling author Adam Hochschild has selected and updated over two dozen essays and pieces of reporting from his long career. Threaded through them all is his concern for social justice and the people who have fought for it. The articles here range from a California gun show to a Finnish prison, from a Congolese center for rape victims to the ruins of gulag camps in the Soviet Arctic, from a stroll through construction sites with an ecologically pioneering architect in India to a day on the campaign trail with Nelson Mandela. Hochschild also talks about the writers he loves, from Mark Twain to John McPhee, and explores such far-reaching topics as why so much history is badly written, what bookshelves tell us about their owners, and his front-row seat for the shocking revelation in the 1960s that the CIA had been secretly controlling dozens of supposedly independent organizations.
 
With the skills of a journalist, the knowledge of a historian, and the heart of an activist, Hochschild shares the stories of people who took a stand against despotism, spoke out against unjust wars and government surveillance, and dared to dream of a better and more just world.

Genres: Essays, Nonfiction, Politics, History

296 pages, Paperback

First published October 2, 2018

About the author

Hochschild was born in New York City. As a college student, he spent a summer working on an anti-government newspaper in South Africa and subsequently worked briefly as a civil rights worker in Mississippi in 1964. Both were politically pivotal experiences about which he would later write in his book Finding the Trapdoor. He later was part of the movement against the Vietnam War, and, after several years as a daily newspaper reporter, worked as a writer and editor for the leftwing Ramparts magazine. In the mid-1970s, he was one of the co-founders of Mother Jones.

Hochschild's first book was a memoir, Half the Way Home: a Memoir of Father and Son (1986), in which he described the difficult relationship he had with his father. His later books include The Mirror at Midnight: a South African Journey (1990; new edition, 2007), The Unquiet Ghost: Russians Remember Stalin (1994; new edition, 2003), Finding the Trapdoor: Essays, Portraits, Travels (1997), which collects his personal essays and reportage, and King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa (1998; new edition, 2006), a history of the conquest and colonization of the Congo by Belgium's King Léopold II. His Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire's Slaves, published in 2005, is about the antislavery movement in the British Empire.

Hochschild has also written for The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, The New York Review of Books, The New York Times Magazine, and The Nation. He was also a commentator on National Public Radio's All Things Considered. Hochschild's books have been translated into twelve languages.

A frequent lecturer at Harvard's annual Nieman Narrative Journalism Conference and similar venues, Hochschild lives in San Francisco and teaches writing at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley. He is married to sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild.

Taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Hoc...

Reviews

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Still catching up on my Goodreads feed -- and what I've read. Adam Hochschild is so damn smart and his moral compass is so astute. He is both a journalist and an activist. I savored these essays back in January, and still I'm thinking about the one in this collection about Joseph Conrad and Heart of Darkness, and the one in the collection about the refuge for rape victims in the Congo. Both are wrenching.

[Carol Chapin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can’t count how many times I have started to read a book of essays, but then put it aside because the articles were too dry, not compelling. Not so this book. These essays are fascinating. Perhaps it’s because Adam Hochschild is what he calls a “public historian” – not exactly a journalist, but a writer who relates important historical subjects in a style that is fresh and interesting. (In fact, one of the later essays talks about writing public history versus academic history.) I am familiar with Hochschild from his book KING LEOPOLD’S GHOSTS which deals with the brutal colonization of the Belgian Congo. I also listened to an audio version of his book on World War I, TO END ALL WARS. But I find from these essays that he has delved into many other topics of interest, many of which are extremely germane to current world events. His essays here include:
--surveillance in the United States, from the age of Woodrow Wilson, to J. Edgar Hoover, to the sixties;
--several on Africa, making me want to reread HEART OF DARKNESS;
--several from his time spent in India, discussing the unusual differences of the state of Kerala from the rest of the country;
--Stalin’s purges, and unwitting Americans who became caught up in them; his visits to Siberia to old prison camp sites;
--several essays on authors, from the famous (Mark Twain) to several new to me;
--“Practicing History without a License”, as described above.
The only issue with this book is how it greatly expanded my curiosity about these subjects and added to a too-long “to read” list.

[Katrina · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

Informative and insightful, Hochschild's collection of essays offers a cultural, political and historical look at several countries through a western perspective. While some of the essays are conversational and accessible, I found others slightly more challenging, but certainly rewarding, as well as thought provoking. Certainly made me reconsider any preconceived notions I may have had.

An interesting and worthy read.

This was an ARC in exchange for an honest review. With thanks to Netgalley and University of California Press.

[Andy · Rating 5 out of 5]

The essays are illuminating on a number of topics I wouldn't otherwise have thought about and added a few books to my reading list, which is always a plus. I absolutely agree with the essay on how public history should be written in an engaging manner on a broader number of topics than the Founding Fathers, WWII, and The Civil War. I think this dearth of material in popular history books might also explain why every other historical fiction book that comes out is about one of those topics as well.

[Mimi · Rating 5 out of 5]

a really great selection of essays written between the late 90's and last year, from many places in the world.

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent, if sobering read. I think I need to move on to something silly next.

[Lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Still relevant today, though published in 2018. It is a tad old fashioned in its view point, for example lambasting e-books over printed books. They both have a place.

[Sarah Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think the author is very thoughtful and appreciate his insights. The content didn’t seem as fresh as I expected it to be, though.

[Patrick Collins · Rating 3 out of 5]

The pessimists accompaniment to “Factfulness”. The book reviews seemed like filler but the essays shed light on dark places.

[Lisa]

I was lucky enough to have a class with Mr. Hochschild in graduate school. I'm looking forward to his latest book, which comes out this fall.

[Craigtator · Rating 3 out of 5]

The sections on surveillance and on Africa were engaging. The rest, not so much