Description
In this reprint from 1979, the late journalist Cowan presents articles he wrote that were first published in The Village Voice in the 1970s (revised and extended for the book). The articles delve into the experiences of different groups of people in America, considering events from their perspectives, and testing his own beliefs about them. He writes about the controversy over books at schools in West Virginia, the miner's strike in Harlan County, Kentucky, the fight over low-income housing in Forest Hills, Queens, a truckers' strike, and other "tribes" and their stories. There is no index. Annotation ©2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
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First published in 1979 and long out of print, The Tribes of America is an overlooked classic—a prescient and deeply empathetic work based on seven years of reporting from the front lines of the culture wars that continue to divide America. Long before Tom Frank asked, ”What's the matter with Kansas?” Village Voice reporter and civil rights activist Paul Cowan set out to “to cross the sound barrier of dogma and test [his] beliefs against the realities of American life” by investigating what he called the “professional, religious, ethnic, and racial tribes—the Tribes of America.” From reporting on a vicious battle over school textbooks in West Virginia, the school busing crisis in Boston, and the miners' strike in Harlan County, Kentucky, to the fight over low-income housing in Forest Hills, Queens, and the 1972 conspiracy trial of Eqbal Ahmad, Father Philip Berrigan, and others, Cowan journeyed deep into misunderstood communities across the nation to depict American struggles, prejudices, and hopes.In his introduction, Rick Perlstein writes that Cowan's “agonized sensitivity to battlefields then barely emergent makes for one of the most remarkable books I have ever read by any journalist.” The Tribes of America is a powerful model for engaged journalism and an enormously illuminating portrait of a nation at war with itself.
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