Howard Fast – författare

This extraordinary collection of short stories reminds us how great a talent Dreiser was. A giant among American writers, he fought throughout his career to capture life in realistic terms. In his stories as well as his celebrated novels, he sought to uncover the problems of common Americans at the turn of the century—their struggles with society and their dreams of power and wealth against a backdrop of threatening poverty. "Dreiser has no peer in the American short story.…As fine as his novels are, they do not attain the artistic wholeness of his short tales. Among the moderns, there is almost no one capable of writing tales like these. The best of today is pallid and non-human when compared with Dreiser’s compassionate searchings."—from the Introduction by Howard Fast.

The best-selling novel about a slave revolt in ancient Rome and the basis for the popular motion picture.

In more than 100 essays, written over a three-year period for the "New York Observer", Howard Fast looks with horror at the official violence inflicted on Nicaragua, El Salvador, Grenada, Panama and Iraq and the unofficial violence that is taking place in the cities of the United States. In "War and Peace", Fast summons us to face the wars and the social disintegration that degraded the Reagan and Bush years, with all the explanations and excuses stripped away. He dwells on the monumental folly of the Cold War and shows us repeatedly what we could have done with the billions spent on planes, bombs and guns if we had spent them on the education and safety of our children, on housing, medical care, rebuilding the cities - and what we can still do in the future. As in Swift, Yahoos populate the essays of this book: the drug dealers; the local political hacks; the anti-Semites; the racists; the women-bashers; the arms traffickers: the whole unsavory cast. As in Mencken, boobs run loose in the White House and in the halls of Congress. From time to time, a Candide-like character named D'emas (Yiddish for the "the truth") appears and asks embarrassing questions about the ways of our civilisation, which his interlocutor is hard-pressed to answer. And yet, after Howard Fast recounts the inanity and brutality of these years, he offers a humane vision of what America and the rest of the world could be. These essays should hold a place in 20th-century letters as a statement of unsurpassed passion on the theme: war and peace.

"Howard Fast makes superb use of his material. ... Aside from its social and historical implications, Freedom Road is a high-geared story, told with that peculiar dramatic intensity of which Fast is a master". -- Chicago Daily News

This edition brings the story of 20th-century Southern politics up to the present day and the virtual triumph of Southern Republicanism. It considers the changes in party politics, leadership, civil rights and black participation in Southern politics.

Originally published in 1941, The Last Frontier is the story of the Cheyenne Indians in the 1870s, and their bitter struggle to flee from the Indian Territory in Oklahoma back to their home in Wyoming and Montana. Some 300 Indians, led by Little Wolf, fought against General Crook and 10,000 troops, with only 60 finally making it through to freedom. Fast extensively researched this book in the late 1930s, visiting and speaking with Cheyenne experts in Norman, Oklahoma. This was the first of Fast's many books to gain a wide popular audience; it was eventually made by John Ford into the classic film Cheyenne Autumn (1964).

Originally published in 1942, The Unvanquished is the story of the Continental Army and George Washington in the desperate early months when the American Revolution faced defeat and disintegration. The book begins with the retreat across Manhattan's East River that saved the Continental Army after the Battle of Long Island. It ends with Washington's recrossing of the Delaware in the daring 1776 Christmas Eve raid on the Hessian camp at Trenton.

Originally published in 1942, The Unvanquished is the story of the Continental Army and George Washington in the desperate early months when the American Revolution faced defeat and disintegration. The book begins with the retreat across Manhattan's East River that saved the Continental Army after the Battle of Long Island. It ends with Washington's recrossing of the Delaware in the daring 1776 Christmas Eve raid on the Hessian camp at Trenton.

The best-selling novel about a slave revolt in ancient Rome and the basis for the popular motion picture.

"Fast is always a wonderful storyteller, and the story is a good one. ... Entertaining and memorable". -- Library Journal

"Howard Fast makes superb use of his material. ... Aside from its social and historical implications, Freedom Road is a high-geared story, told with that peculiar dramatic intensity of which Fast is a master". -- Chicago Daily News