Bøger af Edward Renehan

"Excellent, a truly enjoyable and informative read."- STEVE BUSCEMI, actor/director "Edward Renehan does a great job of shining a light into this dark episode of American history."- BILLY BRAGG "I loved this book ... Bravo!" - JULIE GARFIELD, daughter of blacklisted screen-actor John Garfield "Fascinating, surprising, moving, inspiring." - ARTHUR GOLDWAG, author of THE NEW HATE: A HISTORY OF FEAR AND LOATHING ON THE POPULIST RIGHT Blacklists. Political witch-hunts. Congressional inquisitions. Loyalty oaths. And one brave banjo-wielding patriot willing to risk prison and professional ruin rather than acquiesce ... "Pete [was] blacklisted during the McCarthy era and had a hard time, but he never stopped."- BOB DYLAN "I am not going to answer any questions as to my association, my philosophical or religious beliefs or my political beliefs, or how I voted in any election, or any of these private affairs. I think these are very improper questions for any American to be asked ...."- PETE SEEGER, testifying before the House Select Committee on Un-American Activities, August 1955

One of the most famous moments of the Sixties - and one which continues to this day to be grossly misconstrued, mistold, and loaded with undeserved meaning - is the night in July of 1965 when Bob Dylan played an electric set (or at least tried to play an electric set) at the Newport Folk Festival: an event after which, supposedly, the culture of the Sixties was never quite the same again. Even Dylan's most pre-eminent chronicler Sean Wilentz has mischaracterized this evening as the night when "[Alan] Lomax along with Pete Seeger led the old guard that objected to the blasts of white-boy electricity, including Dylan's." Seeger biographer David Dunaway speaks of Dylan understanding that at Newport "the electric guitar meant a declaration of war" and that, intensely ambitious, he sought publicity by smuggling "rock into the citadel of folk music." In this narrative, battle lines were drawn, a fight waged, and a revolution begun. The over-simplification is too attractive to resist. Our tribal memory absolutely yearns for Dylan's abbreviated, 15-minute performance to be a pivot point not just from acoustic to electric, but also from traditional to commercial, from topical to cynical, and from roots to revolution. We also want Newport to be a "citadel of folk music,"and to be comfortable with any number of other safe, easy assumptions. For this symbology to work, however, we need an "old guard" to rebel against, and a youthful "new guard" to do the rising up. We also need to believe that traditional acoustic music cannot be (and was not at that time already) commercial, that electric music can never be traditional, that electric music is always commercial, that the Newport Fest (only a few years old) represented some sort of "hallowed ground" of acoustic music, and that various other straight lines apply. They don't. In this book, critically-acclaimed author Edward Renehan examines how and why.

Now filmed as The Mercy starring Colin Firth & Rachel Weisz Windcheck Magazine (Nov/Dec 2016): Absorbing and insightful ... utterly unforgettable. Practical Sailor (Jan 2017): Adds a new depth of storytelling to a tale of madness that many sailors are familiar with. Points East Magazine (July 2017): Crowhurst made his own bed, and unfortunately he lay in it, too. He flew too close to the sun, and his story done right, as it is in Desperate Voyage, never grows old. Praise from Steven Callahan, New York Times bestselling author of Adrift Desperate Voyage provides readers precious insights through concentration on the backstory and how Crowhurst's basic personality drove him inexorably towards disaster, and like a dangerous vortex, dragged his family, friends, and supporters into his sphere. ... Simply fascinating. More Praise: Ed Renehan's Desperate Voyage, the retelling of Donald Crowhurst's tragic voyage during the 1968/69 Golden Globe Race, is a finely honed account of what has become offshore sailing's most enduring story. Drawing on an array of sources, Renehan's Crowhurst is Shakespearean: narcissistic and reviled but also sympathetic, a flawed human consumed by ambition. Although I've known this story forever, Renehan's fresh, haunting narrative had me hoping for a new ending, a better outcome this time around. Alas, it's not to be. You just keep reading until it breaks your heart. - John Kretschmer, author of Sailing a Serious Ocean, At the Mercy of the Sea, Flirting With Mermaids, and Cape Horn to Starboard Edward Renehan's Desperate Voyage is incisive, haunting, and absorbing. For those, like me, initially unfamiliar with this great sea drama, it is a perfect introduction to the story of Donald Crowhurst and the Golden Globe Race of 1968. Crowhurst is flawed and complicated, a tragic and captivating figure, and Renehan's retelling, Shakespearean in scope, is wonderfully crafted and endlessly fascinating.- William Boyle, author of the critically-acclaimed Gravesend and Death Don't Have No Mercy On a dismal day at the end of October, 1968, a weekend sailor by the name of Donald Crowhurst set out from England in a flimsy trimaran, hoping to win the London Sunday Times "Golden Globe" race and become the first solo sailor to circumnavigate the world nonstop. His was an exercise in over-arching ambition, delusion, and tragedy such as the world has seldom known. Before it was over, the world media would be subject to a fraud of enormous proportions, and Crowhurst would die a madman in the middle of the Atlantic. What he left behind was a shattered boat, a shattered family, and this incredible story. Includes exclusive photos by Eric Loss.Further illustrations by Tricia Highsmith.

Recruited to help find his notorious war criminal uncle, Jurgen Enkert confronts his family's dark past ... and an even more sinister present. Excellent, fast-paced, and engaging.- Charles Scribner III A page-turning work of fiction that ... looks into the face of evil without blinking - and finds that it is anything but banal.- Arthur Goldwag, author of The New Hate and Cults, Conspiracies, and Secret Societies. He was raised under another name, and purposely isolated from any connection with his Nazi uncle. He's husband to a Jewish woman whose parents died in the Holocaust, and the father of a Jewish son. But now this unobtrusive antiques dealer finds himself swept up in a complex plot to bring his uncle to justice ... an endeavor which in the end will put both he and his family at grave risk.

Jack Kerouac's ON THE ROAD endures as a benchmark in postwar American Letters and an eternal rite of passage for youth. But how many of these young readers actually "get" Kerouac's theme of individual redemption? How many, instead of encountering themselves in the novel as Kerouac intended, encounter only the ghosts of others: the "Beats" of Kerouac's era and imagination? In this penetrating consideration, Edward Renehan reveals Kerouac's main inspirations (and process) in creating ON THE ROAD, and considers the impact the book had on both the author and his times. Most importantly, he examines why the novel Kerouac meant as a banshee cry against orthodoxy has too often been misconstrued as a promotional brochure for mock-rebellion: mere imitation of what others have done before, mere mimicking of the novel's "Beat" characters.

This vivid biography portrays a complex, brilliant, often contradictory, and ultimately fascinating man. His life-both as a record of himself and as a reflection of his times-makes for a good and important story of Michigan history and politics, the automotive industry, and philanthropy.

Cornelius Vanderbilt made his initial fortune building ferry cargo routes for sailing vessels. Then he moved into steamboats and railroads. With the New York Central, Vanderbilt established the nation's first major integrated rail system, linking New York with Boston, Montreal, Chicago and St Louis. This biography narrates the life of Vanderbilt.

Acclaimed biographer Edward J. Renehan, Jr., combines lively anecdotes with the rich social tapestry of the Gilded Age to paint the portrait of the most talented financial buccaneer of his generation.