Dispatches and Dictators: Ralph Barnes for the Herald Tribune
 |
By Barbara S. Mahoney
**2003 Oregon Book Award Winner for General Nonfiction**
October 2002. 6 x 9 inches. 320 pages. Illustrations. Bibliography. Index.
ISBN 0-87071-546-1. Hardcover, $24.95.
Table of Contents
|
Dispatches and Dictators uncovers the fascinating story of Oregon native Ralph Barnes, the
New York Herald Tribune's European correspondent, who served in Paris, Rome, Moscow, Berlin, and London in the years between the two world wars. Barnes has been praised by colleagues and competitors alike as one of the best reporters of that pivotal era. But since his death in the 1940 crash of a British bomber in Yugoslavia, he has been largely forgotten.
With persistence and unusually keen insight, Ralph Barnes reported on Fascism, Communism, Nazism, and the events leading to World War II. Stalin confined Barnes to Moscow for disclosing that millions were dying during the Soviet collectivization of agriculture, and Hitler expelled Barnes from Germany for predicting the Nazi attack on the Soviet Union.
Recently, scholars have rediscovered Barnes, recognizing the perceptiveness of his observations about the nature of the Soviet regime, the centrality of anti-Semitism to the Nazis, and the descent into war.
Drawing from Barnes's dispatches, his personal correspondence, and the recollections of his colleagues,
Dispatches and Dictators offers a valuable perspective on the interwar period and on the challenges facing journalists covering the events of the time. Barnes's story also offers an intimate glimpse into one family's experience with the risks, hardships, and separations that belie the romantic popular image of the foreign correspondent.
| "None of us could equal Ralph as an all-round, highly informed, and keenly perceptive news bloodhound. Of our generation, Ralph had the widest posted experience in major European capitals. Ralph Barnes was unchallengeably unique." |
--Leland Stowe, Pulitzer Prize-winning correspondent
for the New York Herald Tribune and the Chicago Daily News |
| |
| "A masterful biography of a journalist who dedicated himself to the truth as he saw it, who openly defied the true monsters of our last century (Hitler and Stalin), who was so dedicated to what he saw as his responsibility that he died for it. The Salem man was one of the great ones, now almost forgotten. This breakneck-paced book might just restore his reputation." |
| --Dan Hays, Statesman Journal |
About the Author
A historian with a special interest in twentieth-century European history, Barbara Mahoney discovered Ralph Barnes while she was working at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon, his alma mater. Mahoney lives in Wilsonville, Oregon.
Back to top of page
Secure online ordering form (Orders go to our distributor - The University of Arizona Press). For a complete listing of available books, check out our catalog of books in print.
