Lessons from a Dark Time and Other Essays

Adam Hochschild is a journalist and author who has written on issues of human rights and social justice. His books include the bestselling King Leopold’s Ghost. He has been a finalist twice for the National Book Critics Circle Award and once for the National Book Award. He has been awarded the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and is a two-time recipient of the Gold Medal of the California Book Awards.

"This is advocacy journalism of the most persuasive kind — impassioned but never shrill or argumentative, solidly grounded in facts patiently marshaled to make the case. . . . Hochschild builds his evidence with the skill and rigor of a master bricklayer. . . . Repeatedly, in his hands, the past becomes vividly rendered prologue to the present.”

• List of IllustrationsIntroductionThe Surveillance State1 • Lessons from a Dark Time2 • Students as Spies3 • Hoover’s Secret Empire4 • The Father of American Surveillance5 • Prison MadnessAfrica6 • The Listening House7 • All That Glitters8 • A Showman in the Rainforest9 • Heart of Darkness: Fiction or Reportage?10 • On the Campaign Trail with Nelson MandelaIndia11 • India’s American Imports12 • Palm Trees and Paradoxes13 • The Brick Master14 • The Impossible CityEurope15 • Our Night with Its Stars Askew16 • Shortstops in Siberia17 • A Homage to Homage18 • On Which Continent Was the Holocaust Born?19 • Sunday School HistoryAmerica20 • Pilot on the Great River: Mark Twain’s Nonfiction21 • A Literary Engineer22 • A Nation of GunsThe Continent of Words23 • You Never Know What’s Going to Happen Yesterday24 • Practicing History without a License25 • On the Road Again26 • Books and Our SoulsAcknowledgmentsArticle SourcesPhoto Credits