Dorothy Thompson - A Legend in Her Time

Fülszöveg

Dorothy Thompson was an extraordinary
woman in an extraordinary time. Her mar-
riage to Sinclair Lewis was the most cele-
brated literary union of the century, but it
was in her own right that she became "the
First Lady of American Journalism." She
was a highly talented reporter who covered
the tumultuous happenings of the era pre-
ceding and during World War II; more im-
portantly, she played a prominent role in
helping to shape her countrymen's attitudes
toward the crucial events of those times.
This is the first full story of what Dorothy
herself called her "love affair with life." It
spans a long and controversial professional
career and a stormy private one that in-
cluded three marriages and a succession of
attachments to both sexes. It is a far journey
that begins in a poor parsonage in western
New York State and goes forth to range
through the capitals of the western world.
Beginning in the 1920s, Dorothy man-
aged to be in the right place at the... Tovább

Fülszöveg

Dorothy Thompson was an extraordinary
woman in an extraordinary time. Her mar-
riage to Sinclair Lewis was the most cele-
brated literary union of the century, but it
was in her own right that she became "the
First Lady of American Journalism." She
was a highly talented reporter who covered
the tumultuous happenings of the era pre-
ceding and during World War II; more im-
portantly, she played a prominent role in
helping to shape her countrymen's attitudes
toward the crucial events of those times.
This is the first full story of what Dorothy
herself called her "love affair with life." It
spans a long and controversial professional
career and a stormy private one that in-
cluded three marriages and a succession of
attachments to both sexes. It is a far journey
that begins in a poor parsonage in western
New York State and goes forth to range
through the capitals of the western world.
Beginning in the 1920s, Dorothy man-
aged to be in the right place at the right
time — wherever history was being made.
"She swept through Europe like a blue-
eyed tornado," said her colleague John
Gunther. In Vienna and Berlin, Moscow,
Budapest, and London, she was the center
of the brilliant, glamorous group of foreign
correspondents that included Shirer, Gun-
ther, the Mowrers, Vincent Sheean, Floyd
Gibbons. By 1934, when she was expelled
from Germany by Hitler's personal order,
she had become an international celebrity,
and she returned to America as a columnist
and commentator whose political opinions
and eloquent warnings on the rise of the
Third Reich were read and heard and
heeded by millions. "She and Eleanor
Roosevelt are undoubtedly the most influ-
pential women in the U.S.," stated a Time
uj cover story in 1939. . . , a
continued on back Map
continued from front flap
Dorothy's friends and personal brain
trust of the succeeding years formed a ros-
ter of distinguished Americans and refugee
European intellectuals, and her farm in
Vermont, along with her various elegant
homes in New York, became the social axis
of her influential court. Her powerful public
presence, however, masked an emotional
vulnerability that sometimes led her to con-
tradictory passions and allegiances.
Marion K. Sanders7 candid and compas-
sionate biography, based on Dorothy's
journals and personal papers and on exten-
sive interviews with friends and associates
on two continents, brings a tremendous
immediacy to Dorothy Thompson's life and
the several worlds she moved in. One has
the sense of being there, of sharing the ex-
citements and triumphs and heartbreaks of
those crowded legendary years, of witness-
ing at first hand the unfolding of a com-
plex and always fascinating woman.
MARION K. SANDERS lives in New York
and is the author of The Lady and the Vote
and The Professional Radical: Conversa-
tions with Saul Alinsky and the editor of
The Crisis in American Medicine. She be-
gan her career as a free-lance journalist and
a political speechwriter. During World War
II, she was a news editor for the Office of
War Information and later became editor-
in-chief of the U.S. government magazine,
Amerika. In 1952, she ran for Congress
(unsuccessfully) and wrote her first book
out of that experience. She was a senior
editor of Harper's Magazine for eleven
years, where many of her investigative arti-
cles on women, medicine, politics, social
welfare, and urban affairs have appeared,
and is currently a contributing editor. Ear-
lier this year, she received an Alumnae
Achievement Award from Wellesley
College.
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