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A NOTE FROM NEIL BALDWINReflecting upon my writing life of thirty years, I seem to have set for myself the overwhelming goal of being definitive. For my book on William Carlos Williams, I surveyed all of his manuscripts; for Man Ray, I tracked down out-takes for photographic prints; for Thomas Edison, I leafed through three thousand laboratory notebooks; for Quetzalcoatl, the Plumed Serpent, I trekked to archaeological sites hidden in the mountains and jungles of Mexico. The change came with my current exploration of Henry Ford and the Jews, when I made a decision that this would not--could not--be the standard biography or history. Furthermore, it was not sufficient to merely identify the signposts along the journey. I wanted to illuminate the gradual changes in Ford's opinions of Jews, expressed by him as well as by others on his behalf. If the book were going to be a true reflection of the problem, it would need to expose every facet of Ford's anti-Semitism and get to the truth of his beliefs. The drama would be enhanced by an equally unsparing examination of the ways in which Jews of all kinds responded to Ford's behavior, through action or inaction, courage or fear. It was difficult for me to write about anti-Semitism. Unlike modern movements in poetry and art, or developments in technology, or even mythological archetypes--with which I have been intellectually at ease for so long--anti-Semitism does not possess at its core anything even remotely resembling "progress." It is a degenerative, not a positive trend. It has manifestations in a person's behavior or speech, but these signs often cannot be rationalized by specific or direct causes. The case of Henry Ford has thus been all the more challenging for me, as a biographer and historian, because he was in equal measure the offspring of his times, subject to tumultuous changes in American culture, and a mover and shaker for his times, a man who transformed our way of life. I believe I have bridged these contradictions. |
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PAPERBACKISBN 978-1-58648-163-6 Pub date: 00/00/00 Price: $19.00/23.00 Canada 5-1/2x8-1/4 432 pages B/W photos throughout Carton Quantity: 24 Biography, History Selling Territory: WORLD Pub history: PublicAffairs hc
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