Heroes of My Time

by Harrison E. Salisbury

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Salisbury spent six decades reporting in Russia, Asia, and the US. Hardened by years in the newspaper trenches, he writes about 25 unforgettable people who inspired... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0802712177
• ISBN13: 9780802712172
• Release Date: January 1993
• Publisher: Walker & Company
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 1.32 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.2" x 9.4"

Customer Reviews

Crisp & Readable look at heroes

Journalist Harrison Salisbury describes 25 people of courage whom he greatly admired. The book's revealing vignettes cover people from his native USA, plus China and Russia (Salisbury spent years in these countries), and they range from world statesmen to little known individuals. Deng Pufang devoted his life to helping the disabled after being left paralyzed during the excesses of the Cultural Revolution, while Soong Chingling took great risks to shelter "undesirables" during that same horrific event. Liu Binyan wrote prose that inspired many during his 22 years in Maoist prisons, while Solzhenitsyn angered the Kremlin with his writings about Soviet gulags. Among Americans honored are Bobby Kennedy, journalist Homer Bigart for risking his life at the front, and Roger Wilkins for overcoming a difficult youth and taking risks for civil rights. I question his choice of Nikita Khrushchev (for denouncing Stalin) and of Zhou En Lai (for moderating Mao's cruel excesses), and others may wonder why he neglected figures like Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, etc. Still, Salisbury has chosen many authentically heroic figures, describing their contributions in crisply readable detail. Harrison Salisbury (1908-1993) was one of the top journalists of the 20th Century, winner of the 1955 Pulitzer Prize, and the author of more than 30 books on Russia, China, and the USA. This, his final book, appeared shortly after he passed away in 1993.

Unforgetable Heroes

The book Heroes Of My Time is an outstanding book containing twenty short biographies of people from the 20th century. The author of the book, Harrison E. Salsbury is a Pulitzer-Prize wining journalist who spent six decades writing for the New York Times. These people are all heroes for different reasons. Some people gave inspiration to others while some were leaders and still others risked their lives for strangers. We do not live in an age of heroes but the people written about in this book are unmistakable heroes. The stories of these heroes are unknown, uplifting, and inspirational. The heroes in this book are not always the top newsmakers of the day. Some are men and women who are just as important but seldom recognized in the public eye. An example is three Russian street poets known as The Three who wrote very good poems about Russian politics. The political leaders of the day did not like the poems, but The Three continued to write and recite poems anyway. They are heroes because, even though they were being scorned and yelled at by the Russian leaders, they continued with their poetry and gave inspiration to many people. Brigid Temple Keogh is an example of another obscure hero. Brigid was a teacher in China, but she wasn't like her other Chinese colleagues. "She encouraged her students to argue with her (unthinkable for the solemn Chinese scholars)" (5). She was fired but she didn't give up and eventually found a new job at Yanan University. Yanan University was a run-down school at the end of a road. With houses were merely grim caves carved out of hills. Brigid did not lose her faith, though. This shows heroism because she worked hard after her life got tougher, and she helped lots of people by building new things for their town like a Language center. All of these people were relatively unknown and all obviously heroes. The stories of these men and women are uplifting. Deng Pufang's story was particularly uplifting. Deng Pufang devoted his life to helping the disabled in China after he was tortured and then thrown out of a four story university window and left for dead. His fall left him paralyzed from the waist down. This shows extreme heroism because he could have spent the rest of his life feeling sorry for himself over all of the tragic things that happened to him but he didn't. Instead, he worked hard and got rights for the Chinese disabled, including equal rights in the work force and education. One other hero from the book whose story is uplifting is the story of Homer Bigart. Homer was one of the best newsmen of his day. What makes his story so special is he spent the majority of his life at war, constantly risking his life to let the rest of the world know what was happening. A lot of times, Homer took no more shelter or food then the troops. Homer showed his heroism by laying his life on the line for other people and not thinking of himself as above other people because he lived under same