Overview

During his career at the New York Times, Harrison Salisbury served as the bureau chief in post-World War II Moscow, reported from Hanoi during the Vietnam War, and in retirement he witnessed the Tiananmen Square massacre firsthand. Davis and Trani's engaging biography of the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist makes use of Salisbury's personal archive of interviews, articles, and correspondence to shed light on the personal triumphs and shortcomings of this preeminent reporter and illuminates the twentieth-century world in which he lived.

Full Product Details

9781442219496

Table of Contents

Reviews

Davis and Trani have produced a lively, crisp, yet exhaustive account of a towering figure in the history of The New York Times. A man of the left, Harrison Salisbury spoke truth to power selectively, but everyone respected his talent and industry. He was a great figure in 20th century foreign reporting, whether in Moscow, Hanoi or Beijing, in his seventies no less than in his thirties. Salisbury's sharp eye and eloquent pen produced terrific stories and influential books. His life, vividly reflected in The Reporter Who Knew Too Much, was an American saga blending Minnesota idealism, Washington's leading role in the post-WWII world, and Salisbury's hard-nosed realism learned from brushing shoulders with tyrants. As well as a memorable portrait of Salisbury, here is rich detail on struggles within the Times among brilliant editors who saw themselves as priests of an infallible church. -- Ross Terrill, author of Mao, The New Chinese Empire, and Madame Mao The Reporter Who Knew Too Much is a vivid and meticulous tour through the professional and personal life of one of America's great foreign correspondents. Extensively reliant on archival sources, this biography teaches the reader not only about Harrison Salisbury himself, but also about the broader context of Russian and Chinese history, American diplomacy, and perhaps most importantly, the evolution of the American news business. Highly recommended! -- Judyth L. Twigg, Virginia Commonwealth University Harrison Salisbury [...] was well known in Russia during the Second World War, because he sent the best reports on the situation in the Eastern Front to the New York Times. The unbiased and courageous reports of Salisbury captured the attention and imagination of people in many countries. This book will be very useful for [...] those who are interested in the great events of the second half of the twentieth century. -- Boris Shiriaev

Davis and Trani have produced a lively, crisp, yet exhaustive account of a towering figure in the history of The New York Times. A man of the left, Harrison Salisbury spoke truth to power selectively, but everyone respected his talent and industry. He was a great figure in 20th century foreign reporting, whether in Moscow, Hanoi or Beijing, in his seventies no less than in his thirties. Salisbury's sharp eye and eloquent pen produced terrific stories and influential books. His life, vividly reflected in The Reporter Who Knew Too Much, was an American saga blending Minnesota idealism, Washington's leading role in the post-WWII world, and Salisbury's hard-nosed realism learned from brushing shoulders with tyrants. As well as a memorable portrait of Salisbury, here is rich detail on struggles within the Times among brilliant editors who saw themselves as priests of an infallible church. -- Ross Terrill, author of Mao, The New Chinese Empire, and Madame Mao The Reporter Who Knew Too Much is a vivid and meticulous tour through the professional and personal life of one of America's great foreign correspondents. Extensively reliant on archival sources, this biography teaches the reader not only about Harrison Salisbury himself, but also about the broader context of Russian and Chinese history, American diplomacy, and perhaps most importantly, the evolution of the American news business. Highly recommended! -- Judyth L. Twigg, Virginia Commonwealth University Harrison Salisbury [...] was well known in Russia during the Second World War, because he sent the best reports on the situation in the Eastern Front to the New York Times. The unbiased and courageous reports of Salisbury captured the attention and imagination of people in many countries. This book will be very useful for [...] those who are interested in the great events of the second half of the twentieth century. -- Boris Shiriaev, St. Petersburg University, Russia

Davis and Trani have produced a lively, crisp, yet exhaustive account of a towering figure in the history of the New York Times. A man of the left, Harrison Salisbury spoke truth to power selectively, but everyone respected his talent and industry. He was a great figure in 20th century foreign reporting, whether in Moscow, Hanoi or Beijing, in his seventies no less than in his thirties. Salisbury's sharp eye and eloquent pen produced terrific stories and influential books. His life, vividly reflected in The Reporter Who Knew Too Much, was an American saga blending Minnesota idealism, Washington's leading role in the post-WWII world, and Salisbury's hard-nosed realism learned from brushing shoulders with tyrants. As well as a memorable portrait of Salisbury, here is rich detail on struggles within the Times among brilliant editors who saw themselves as priests of an infallible church. -- Ross Terrill, author of Mao, The New Chinese Empire, and Madame Mao The Reporter Who Knew Too Much is a vivid and meticulous tour through the professional and personal life of one of America's great foreign correspondents. Extensively reliant on archival sources, this biography teaches the reader not only about Harrison Salisbury himself, but also about the broader context of Russian and Chinese history, American diplomacy, and perhaps most importantly, the evolution of the American news business. Highly recommended! -- Judyth L. Twigg, Virginia Commonwealth University Harrison Salisbury [...] was well known in Russia during the Second World War, because he sent the best reports on the situation in the Eastern Front to the New York Times. The unbiased and courageous reports of Salisbury captured the attention and imagination of people in many countries. This book will be very useful for [...] those who are interested in the great events of the second half of the twentieth century. -- Boris Shiriaev, St. Petersburg University, Russia

Author Information

Donald E. Davis is Professor Emeritus of History at Illinois State University. Davis is the editor of No East or West: The Memoirs of Paul B. Anderson. Davis served as professor of Russian History at Illinois State University from 1964 - 2004, and has authored numerous articles, reviews, papers and opinion pieces. Eugene P. Trani is President Emeritus and University Distinguished Professor at Virginia Commonwealth University. Trani has authored, coauthored, annotated, and edited eight books and published more than one hundred articles and opinion pieces. An historian of American diplomatic history, Trani is the author of The Presidency of Warren G. Harding. Trani has also written on the role universities play as key drivers of economic development in their communities. Friends from graduate school at Indiana University, Bloomington, Davis and Trani have co-authored three books: The First Cold War: The Legacy of Woodrow Wilson in U.S.-Soviet Relations (University of Missouri Press), published first in English, then translated and published in Russian and Chinese; Distorted Mirrors: Americans and Their Relations with Russia and China in the Twentieth-Century (University of Missouri Press), also published in Russian and Spanish, and now this significant contribution to the understanding of a major figure in the history of journalism, Harrison E. Salisbury.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available