Pulitzer; A Life in Politics, Print, and Power

New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2010. First Edition [Stated], First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Good/Very good. xiii, [3], 558, [2] pages. Frontis illustration. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Inscribed by the author on the title page. Inscription reads To Helen & John, with much love, Jamie. Front board weak and restrengthened with glue. James McGrath Morris (born 1954) is an American biographer, journalist, book publisher, and independent writer. He began his professional career as a radio news broadcaster in New Mexico in 1978, and then spent a decade working for radio networks, newspapers, and magazines. In 1987, Morris began working in publishing, running Seven Locks Press, a publisher of public affairs books in Washington, DC, and Public Interest Publications. In 2010, Morris published Pulitzer: A Life in Politics, Print, and Power, which the Wall Street Journal deemed one of the five best books on American moguls and one of the five best books on American newspaper publishers; Booklist placed the book on its 2010 list of the ten best biographies of the year. Joseph Pulitzer (April 10, 1847 - October 29, 1911) was a newspaper publisher of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the New York World. He became a national figure and was elected congressman from New York. In the 1890s the fierce competition between his World and William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal caused both to develop the techniques of yellow journalism, which won over readers with sensationalism, sex, crime and horrors. This opened the way to mass-circulation newspapers that depended on advertising revenue and appealed to readers with multiple forms of news, gossip, entertainment and advertising. Derived from a Kirkus review: The spectacular rise of Joseph Pulitzer (1847-1911), from his humble origins in Hungary to becoming the most powerful publisher in the world. Morris offers a substantial, balanced biography of a complicated, mesmerizing figure. After emigrating to the United States during the Civil War, Pulitzer's ferocious ambition to excel and prosper sent him to the Mercantile Library in St. Louis, where he studied and learned English and began his career as a reporter on a German-language newspaper. Itching for more exposure, Pulitzer moved to New York City, where he took over the struggling New York World and converted it into a powerhouse. He eventually used his millions to endow the Columbia School of Journalism, the Missouri School of Journalism and the Pulitzer prizes. Morris ably depicts a volatile, irascible, impulsive man who verbally abused his wife and children, preached democracy, practiced autocracy and believed fervently that he was never wrong.