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Dorothy Day: Dissenting Voice of the American Century
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18/99
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About This Book
"A good biography holds your attention; a great one transcends its subject and sheds light on the myriad forces bearing down on an individual at a particular point in time. Dorothy Day belongs, luminously, to the second [category]." —Los Angeles Review of Books "The authors render their subject in precise and meticulous detail, generating a vivid account of her political and religious development." —The New York Times "We can be grateful to Loughery and Randolph for reviving a voice for our times." —Samantha Powers, The Washington Post The first full authoritative biography of Dorothy Day, American icon, radical pacifist, Catholic convert, and activist whom Pope Francis I compared to Martin Luther King Jr. and Abraham Lincoln.After a middle-class Republican childhood and a few years as a Communist sympathizer, Dorothy Day converted to Catholicism and became an anomaly in American life for almost fifty years. As an orthodox Catholic, political radical, and a rebel who courted controversy, she attracted three generations of admirers. Day went to jail challenging the draft and the war in Vietnam. She was critical of capitalism and foreign policy, and as skeptical of modern liberalism as political conservatism. Her protests began in 1917, leading to her arrest during the suffrage demonstration outside President Wilson's White House. In 1940 she spoke in Congress against the draft and urged young men not to register. She frequented jail throughout the 1950s protesting the nuclear arms race. She told audiences in 1962 that President Kennedy was as much to blame for the Cuban missile crisis. She refused to hear any criticism of the pope, though she sparred with American bishops and priests who lived in well-appointed rectories and tolerated racial segregation in their parishes. Dorothy Day is the exceptional biography of a dedicated modern-day pacifist, the most outspoken advocate for the poor, and a lifelong anarchist. This definitive and insightful account explores the influence this controversial and yet "sainted" woman still has today.
Reviews
"Loughery and Randolph do a strong job depicting the urgency and intensity of her thinking, but they also reveal the blind spots that prevented her from seeing her own serious shortcomings, particularly regarding her daughter Tamar, whom she rarely saw and of whom she was extremely critical ..."
"Too many names of minor characters slow the narrative."
"Randolph are effective scene-setters, but this cinematic portrayal of church life seems rather gauzy."
"Politics change like the weather, and this era of falling atmospheric pressure is nicely captured in Dorothy Day: Dissenting Voice of the American Century ..."
"Readers interested in progressive causes will find inspiration in this granular biography of a 'mesmerizing, demanding, paradoxical woman.'"
"a serviceable and largely balanced look at one of America's most complex and socially influential figures ..."
"We can be grateful to Loughery and Randolph for reviving a voice for our times."
"Francis, indeed, of Jesus himself, spoke imperatively to the American dilemma?"
"With this collaboration, both [authors] have done the finest work of their lifetimes."
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