Harry S. Ashmore

"A spirited appeal to the American conscience."
—Los Angeles Times

6 x 9, 495 pages
paper, ISBN 1-57003-187-8, $19.95t

ABOUT THE BOOK

Civil Rights and Wrongs is a powerful and important reappraisal of the American racial dilemma by a uniquely qualified observer and sometime participant who viewed it from the eye of the political storm that it spawned. In this revised edition, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and editor Harry S. Ashmore assesses the ideological impasses that limited Bill Clinton's effort to reinstate activist government in Washington and offers a penetrating analysis of the 1996 election.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Harry S. Ashmore is the author of more than ten books, including An Epitaph for Dixie and Hearts and Minds: The Anatomy of Racism from Roosevelt to Reagan. The recipient of a Robert F. Kennedy Lifetime Achievement Book Award, Ashmore was born in Greenville, South Carolina, and now lives in Santa Barbara, California.

REVIEWS

"A rare ride through the second half of the twentieth century. As an experienced observer, [Ashmore] focuses on those moments where race and politics cross wires and send sparks flying. The result is neither a book of history nor a memoir, but a valuable, selective accounting of how racial attitudes are both revealed and exploited in America's national politics."—Washington Post Book World

"Few white Americans are better qualified to bear witness to the fight for racial justice in America than Harry Ashmore, and in Civil Rights and Wrongs he offers arresting recollections of the nation's long struggle to save its soul."—Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.

"An insightful account from the vantage point of a white Southerner who was there—and who cared. If there were more Harry Ashmores, this book would have told a happier story."—Julian Bond