Ferguson m bordewich biography of michaels

As a journalist, he traveled extensively in Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and Africa, writing on politics, economic issues, culture, and history, on subjects ranging from the civil war in Burma, religious repression in China, Islamic fundamentalism, German reunification, the Irish economy, Kenya's population crisis, among many others.

He also served for brief periods as an editor and writer for the Tehran Journal in Iran, in , a press officer for the United Nations, in , and an advisor to the New China News Agency in Beijing, in , when that agency was embarking on its effort to switch from a propaganda model to a western-style journalistic one. Fergus M. Home About All Books More.

Read full bio. Most popular. Klan War: Ulysses S. Fergus M. January 04, I enjoyed the following observation, from the preface: "Something else intrigued me, too, the more I read through the records of the debate itself: never did American politicians speak to the nation more honestly, more persuasively, more provocatively, and more passionately, in language that was often so splendid that it nearly reached the level of poetry.

The poll-tested, spin-doctored, shoddily argued, and grammatically challenged 'messaging' that today passes for political communication is pathetic and often incoherent by comparison. It can be no surprise that many Americans have lost interest in politicians who have forgotten how much can be accomplished by the persuasive power of well-crafted English.

Labels civil war Fergus M. Bordewich language rhetoric U. Labels: civil war Fergus M. Fergus M. Bordewich born November 1, is an American writer, popular historian, [ 1 ] and editor living in San Francisco. He is the author of eight nonfiction books, including a memoir, and an illustrated children's book. While growing up, he often traveled to Indian reservations around the United States with his mother, LaVerne Madigan Bordewich, the executive director of the Association on American Indian Affairs , then the only independent advocacy organization for Native Americans.

This early experience helped to shape his lifelong preoccupation with American history, the settlement of the continent, and issues of race, and political power. In the late s, he did voter registration for the NAACP in the still-segregated South; he also worked as a roustabout in Alaska's Arctic oil fields, a taxi driver in New York City, and a deckhand on a Norwegian freighter.

He is a frequent public speaker at universities and other forums, as well as on radio and television. As a journalist, he has traveled extensively in Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and Africa, writing on politics, economic issues, culture, and history, on subjects ranging from the civil war in Burma , religious repression in China, Islamic fundamentalism , German reunification , the Irish economy, Kenya's population crisis, and many others.

He also served for brief periods as an editor and writer for the Tehran Journal in Iran in , a press officer for the United Nations in , and an advisor to the New China News Agency in Beijing in , when that agency was embarking on its effort to switch from a propaganda model to a western-style journalistic one. He is married to Jean Parvin Bordewich.

He speaks often at universities and other forums, as well as on radio and television, most often on subjects related to 18th and 19th century American history. Bordewich said, he became determined to find out ''who these people were and what they had endured.

Ferguson m bordewich biography of michaels

What he learned while writing Bound for Canaan, published by HarperCollins, was that the Underground Railroad was far more than a picturesque story. It was the first political movement born from evangelical religion—evangelical Protestantism—and also the seedbed of the American women's movement. And although the tales about Runyon Heights turned out not to be true, he said, Westchester and its environs are dotted with historical sites along the Underground Railroad.

Winner of the D. Klan War is a bracing record of America's past that reveals the bloody Reconstruction-era roots of present-day battles to protect the ballot box and stamp out resurgent white supremacist ideologies. Bordewich describes the Ku Klux Klan as "the first organized terrorist movement in American history. Their mission was to obliterate the muscular democratic power of newly emancipated Black Americans and their white allies, often by the most horrifying means imaginable.

To repel the virulent tidal wave of violence, President Ulysses S. Grant waged a battle against both armed southern enemies of Reconstruction and northern politicians seduced by by visions of peaceful postwar conciliation, testing the limits of the federal government in determining the power of states rights. Bordewich transports readers to the front lines, in the hamlets of the former Confederacy and the marble corridors of Congress, highlighting an unsung generation of grassroots Black leaders and key political figures such as Missouri senator Carl Schurz, who sacrificed the rights of Black Americans in the name of political "reform," and the ruthless Klan leader and former slave trader and Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest.

Bordewich's previous book, Congress at War tells the story of how Congress helped win the Civil War—a new perspective that puts the House and Senate, rather than Lincoln, at the center of the conflict.