William Shirer (1904-1993), a star foreign correspondent with the Chicago Tribune in the 1920s and ’30s, was a prominent member of what one contemporary observer described as an extraordinary band of American journalists, "some with the Midwest hayseed still in their hair," who gave their North American Audiences a visceral sense of how Europe was spiralling into chaos and war. In 1937, Shirer left print journalism and became the first of the now legendary "Murrow boys," working as an on-air partner to the iconic CBS broadcaster Edward R. Murrow. With Shirer reporting from inside Nazi Germany and Murrow from blitz-ravaged London, the pair built CBS’s European news operation into the industry leader and, in the process, revolutionized broadcasting. But after the war ended, the Shirer-Murrow relationship shattered. Shirer lost his job and by 1950 found himself blacklisted as a supposed Communist sympathizer. After nearly a decade in the professional wilderness, he began work on The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. Published in 1960, Shirer's magnum opus sold millions of copies and was hailed as the masterwork that would "ensure his reputation as long as humankind reads." Ken Cuthbertson's A Complex Fate is a thought-provoking, richly detailed biography of William Shirer. Written with the full cooperation of Shirer’s family, and generously illustrated with photographs, it introduces a new generation of readers to a supremely talented, complex writer, while placing into historical context some of the pivotal media developments of our time.
Authors
- Bibliography, etc. Note
- Includes bibliographical references and index
- Control Number Identifier
- CaOOCEL
- Description conventions
- rda
- Dewey Decimal Classification Number
- 070.92
- Dewey Decimal Edition Number
- 23
- Distributor
- Canadian Electronic Library (Firm),
- General Note
- Issued as part of the desLibris books collection
- Geographic Area Code
- n-us---
- ISBN
- 9780773597235 9780773545441
- LCCN
- PS3537.H913
- LCCN Item number
- Z85 2015eb
- Modifying agency
- CaBNVSL
- Original cataloging agency
- CaOONL
- Physical Description | Extent
- 1 electronic text (xii, 32 unnumbered pages, 548 pages)
- Published in
- Ottawa, Ontario
- Publisher or Distributor Number
- CaOOCEL
- Rights
- Access restricted to authorized users and institutions
- System Control Number
- (CaBNVSL)thg00930067 (OCoLC)909233529 (CaOOCEL)449564
- System Details Note
- Mode of access: World Wide Web
- Transcribing agency
- CaOONL
Table of Contents
- Cover 1
- A COMPLEX FATE 2
- Title 4
- Copyright 5
- Dedication 6
- Contents 8
- Illustrations 14
- Foreword 10
- Introduction 32
- 1 Midwestern Beginnings 36
- 2 Cedar Rapids 47
- 3 More Questions than Answers 56
- 4 Paris 64
- 5 The World’s Dizziest Newspaper 74
- 6 Gabardine Trenchcoats and Late-Night Trains 80
- 7 Vienna: A Capital without a Nation 91
- 8 “SHIRER FLY INDIA” 104
- 9 Mahatma Gandhi 118
- 10 Termination 132
- 11 From Paris to Berlin 144
- 12 The Nightmare Years 152
- 13 A Change of Direction 164
- 14 An Unlikely Duo 172
- 15 Return to Vienna 187
- 16 “We now take you to London...” 200
- 17 Radio News Comes of Age 212
- 18 The Gathering Clouds of War 223
- 19 A Pandora’s Box of Horrors 236
- 20 War on the Western Front 245
- 21 Hitler Ascendant 274
- 22 Auf wiedersehen, Berlin 286
- 23 Berlin Diary 302
- 24 The Price of Fame 314
- 25 Change and Confusion 323
- 26 The Banality of Evil 335
- 27 Changing Times 344
- 28 Tides of Intolerance 352
- 29 “Pride ruined the angels” 366
- 30 Signing Off at CBS 376
- 31 “May his voice be heard again” 384
- 32 Blacklisted 398
- 33 End of an Affair 409
- 34 A Book for the Ages 423
- 35 “The transientness of our existence” 444
- 36 An Ending and a New Beginning 457
- 37 Memoirs 473
- 38 A Twenty-Year-Old Mind in an Eighty-Year-Old Body 486
- 39 Tenacious to the End 501
- 40 The Final Act 507
- Acknowledgments 516
- Notes 520
- Bibliography 564
- Index 570