Lewis (Gideon's Trumpet)—a writer with the New York Times
for nearly five decades and himself a two-time Pulitzer winner—succeeds in presenting some of the world's best recent journalism. This is a book best dipped into for the pleasure of its writing. There are plenty of both prominent and almost-forgotten stories: "Red" Smith on the near-bankruptcy of New York City in the 1970s, Max Frankel on Nixon's 1972 visit to China, Linda Greenhouse on failed Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork. Lewis's fine introductory essay describes the post-Vietnam transformation of American journalism. The war and Watergate, he contends, made the press more skeptical of those in power and more confrontational in tone. Pulitzer Prizes increasingly went to fearless reporters like David Halberstam, whose tragically prescient analysis, in 1963, of the worsening situation in Vietnam constitutes one of the highlights of this book. The American military in Vietnam, wrote Halberstam, faced a bloody quagmire, "a situation like the one that defeated the French in the 1945–54 Indochinese war." Another highlight is Lewis's own analysis of the Warren court, which moved aggressively to "federalize" legal protections in the areas of civil rights and criminal due process. It's a paragon of accessible legal writing. Perhaps the best, and certainly the most important, piece in the collection is Mirta Ojito's unforgettable recent story of two Cuban immigrants, one black and one white and how race comes to define and divide the two friends once they move to Miami. The piece is everything great journalism should be: empathetic, unmistakably relevant and a challenge to our basic ideals. For anyone interested in recent history or journalism at its best, this book will prove worthwhile. Agent, the Wylie Agency. (Oct. 16)
