Myra MacPherson – författare

Praise for the original edition:"A haunting chorus of voices, a moving deeply disturbing evocation of an era." —San Francisco Chronicle"Myra MacPherson's book belongs with the best of the works on Vietnam, and there has been no better body of war literature that I know of." —Joseph Heller"A brilliant and necessary book . . . this stunning depiction of Vietnam's bitter fruit is calculated to agitate even the most complacent American." —Philadelphia Inquirer"There have been many books on the Vietnam War, but few have captured its second life as memory better than Long Time Passing." —Washington Post Book World"A most perceptive and fascinating account of the continuing impact of the Vietnam experience. . . . As this important book makes clear, we will be paying the costs for Vietnam for long years to come. Myra MacPherson not only lived through the Vietnam years, she writes with the insight of one still deeply caught up in the issues of that tragedy." —George McGovern"Enthralling reading . . . full of deep and strong emotions." —New York TimesThis new edition of a classic book on the impact of the Vietnam War on Americans reintroduces the haunted voices of the Vietnam era to a new generation of readers. In a new introduction, Myra MacPherson reflects on what has changed, and what hasn't, in the years since these interviews were conducted, explains the key points of reference from the 1980s that feature prominently in them, and brings the stories of her principal characters up-to-date.

Boasting equal parts scholarship and style, "All Governments Lie" is a highly readable, groundbreaking, and timely look at I. F. Stone -- one of America''s most independent and revered journalists, whose work carries the same immediacy it did almost a half century ago, highlighting the ever-present need for dissenting voices. In the world of Washington political journalism, notorious for trading independence for access, I. F. "Izzy" Stone was so unique as to be a genuine wonder. Always skeptical -- "All governments lie, but disaster lies in wait for countries whose officials smoke the same hashish they give out," he memorably quipped -- Stone was ahead of the pack on the most pivotal twentieth-century trends: the rise of Hitler and Fascism, disastrous Cold War foreign policies, covert actions of the FBI and CIA, the greatness of the Civil Rights movement, the horror of Vietnam, the strengths and weaknesses of the antiwar movement, the disgrace of Iran-contra, and the class greed of Reaganomics. His constant barrage against J. Edgar Hoover earned him close monitoring by the FBI from the Great Depression through the Vietnam War, and even an investigation for espionage during the fifties. After making his mark on feisty New York dailies and in The Nation -- scoring such scoops as the discovery of American cartels doing business with Nazi Germany -- Stone became unemployable during the dark days of McCarthyism. Out of desperation he started his four-page I. F. Stone''s Weekly, which ran from 1953 to 1971. The first journalist to label the Gulf of Tonkin affair a sham excuse to escalate the Vietnam War, Stone garnered worldwide fans, was read in the corridors of power, and became wealthy. Later, the "world''s oldest living freshman" learned Greek to write his bestseller The Trial of Socrates. Here, for the first time, acclaimed journalist and author Myra MacPherson brings the legendary Stone into sharp focus. Rooted in fifteen years of research, this monumental biography includes information from newly declassified international documents and Stone''s unpublished five-thousand-page FBI file, as well as personal interviews with Stone and his wife, Esther; with famed modern thinkers; and with the best of today''s journalists. It illuminates the vast sweep of turbulent twentieth-century history as well as Stone''s complex and colorful life. The result is more than a masterful portrait of a remarkable character; it''s a far-reaching assessment of journalism and its role in our culture.