The book is simply the best introduction available to this remarkable man. Wieder’s book also shows us why such contact might be crucial to those of us in movements rising up against global tyranny and injustice. Studs Terkel: Politics, Culture, But Mostly Conversation allows us to realize the importance of reaching through our own daily realities – increasingly clogged with disembodied, impersonal interaction – to find value in actual face-time with real humans. We also see Studs the family man and devoted husband to his adored wife, Ida. We see the actor, the writer, the radio host, the jazz lover, whose early work in television earned him a notorious place on the McCarthy blacklist. We see Studs, the eminent oral historian, the inveterate and selfless supporter of radical causes, especially civil rights. Alan Wieder’s Studs Terkel: Politics, Culture, But Mostly Conversation is the first comprehensive book about this man.ĭrawing from over one hundred interviews of people who knew and worked with Studs, Alan Wieder creates a multi-dimensional portrait of a run-of-the-mill guy from Chicago who, in public life, became an acclaimed author and raconteur, while managing, in his private life, to remain a mensch.
In scores of books and thousands of radio and television broadcasts, Studs paid attention – and respect – to “ordinary” human beings of all classes and colors, as they talked about their lives as workers, dreamers, survivors. He was a leftist who valued human beings over political dogma. Studs Terkel was an American icon who had no use for America’s cult of celebrity.
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