Neal Gabler Livres

"The epic, definitive biography of Ted Kennedy--an immersive journey through the life of a complicated man and a sweeping history of the fall of liberalism and the collapse of political morality. Edward M. Kennedy was never expected to succeed. The youngest of nine, he lacked his brothers' natural gifts and easy grace. Yet after winning election to the Senate at the tender age of thirty, he became the most consequential legislator of his lifetime, perhaps even American history. Surviving the traumas of his brothers' assassinations, Ted Kennedy ultimately exerted the greatest effort keeping alive the mission of an active and caring government. He swept into the Senate at the high-water mark of the mid-century New Deal consensus and fulfilled the promise of that momentum throughout his glory years in the Senate as the booming voice of American liberalism. That voice found its greatest impact in the laws he passed that wove government firmly into American life, extending aid and opportunity to those in most desperate need. Two thousand pieces of legislation, ranging from health care to education to civil rights, bore Ted's fingerprints. He worked tirelessly to better people's lives, even after the Reagan-era push for limited government rewrote the contract between nation and citizens. He did this because he felt he owed it to those who suffered, and those with whom he empathized out of his own pain and ever-present sense of inadequacy. But Ted Kennedy was not immune to the darkness that plagued his family. He lived long enough to fail, to sin, to fall in and out of favor. The infamous incident at Chappaquiddick marked an unfortunate turning point in the youngest Kennedy's life, and it would not be his last brush with controversy. As his personal failures compounded in the public eye, he struggled to maintain the traction that had carried his agenda so far. The product of a decade of work and hundreds of interviews, Catching the Wind will be an essential work of history and biography. The first of two volumes in a sweeping narrative, it traces the extraordinary life of an American statesman from his early years through the turning point of the 1970s. It is a landmark study of legislative genius and a powerful exploration of the man who spent his career upholding his mandate in service of a better America"-- Provided by publisher

"From the author of Catching the Wind, called "one of the truly great biographies of our time," comes the second volume of the epic, definitive biography of Ted Kennedy-in which America's tectonic shift toward conservatism leaves Kennedy the lone powerful voice in the fight to advance protection for the poor and working-class. In Against the Wind, Ted Kennedy enters 1975 no longer in his brothers' shadow but as a force in his own right, having assumed their mantle as a leading liberal, borne along by the progressive wind that they had helped generate. But as the seventies grind on, Ted Kennedy sails largely against the wind as it shifts direction-first with the election of Jimmy Carter, a moderate who prioritized budget-balancing over the old causes for which Ted had labored, and then with Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, who bundled the discontents of the white working and middle classes into the most powerful force in American politics. When the liberal hour wound down, those resentments would consume American politics for decades. Ted Kennedy, then, was tasked with advocating for the poor and the dispossessed at a time when the idea of individual responsibility overwhelmed that of communal responsibility. This volume tells the story of how a political titan used his legislative mastery to beat back the most dire threats to the nation's most vulnerable individuals. Both politically and personally, Kennedy found himself lost at sea in a time of conservative ascendancy. But he ultimately regained his ballast and emerged not only as the political conscience of the nation but also as the "Lion of the Senate," with a reputation among both Democrats and Republicans as the most effective legislator of his own and possibly all time. In Against the Wind, Neal Gabler brings his inimitable insight to bear on a man who fought to keep liberalism alive when so many were determined to extinguish it. This outstanding conclusion to the epic biography that began with Catching the Wind sheds new light on the great American century and one of its most revered figures"-- Provided by publisher

The definitive portrait of one of the most important cultural figures in American history: Walt Disney. Walt Disney was a true visionary whose desire for escape, iron determination and obsessive perfectionism transformed animation from a novelty to an art form, first with Mickey Mouse and then with his feature films–most notably Snow White, Fantasia, and Bambi. In his superb biography, Neal Gabler shows us how, over the course of two decades, Disney revolutionized the entertainment industry. In a way that was unprecedented and later widely imitated, he built a synergistic empire that combined film, television, theme parks, music, book publishing, and merchandise. Walt Disney is a revelation of both the work and the man–of both the remarkable accomplishment and the hidden life. Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Biography USA Today Biography of the Year

The definitive biography of this remarkable man.

A provocative, original, and richly entertaining group biography of the Jewish immigrants who were the moving forces behind the creation of America's motion picture industry. The names Harry Cohn, William Fox, Carl Laemmle, Louis B. Mayer, Jack and Harry Warner, and Adolph Zucker are giants in the history of contemporary Hollywood, outsiders who dared to invent their own vision of the American Dream. Even to this day, the American values defined largely by the movies of these émigrés endure in American cinema and culture. Who these men were, how they came to dominate Hollywood, and what they gained and lost in the process is the exhilarating story of An Empire of Their Own.

The story of how our bottomless appetite for novelty, gossip, and melodrama has turned everything—news, politics, religion, high culture—into one vast public entertainment.Neal Gabler calls them "lifies," those blockbusters written in the medium of life that dominate the media and the national conversation for weeks, months, even years: the death of Princess Diana, the trial of O.J. Simpson, Kenneth Starr vs. William Jefferson Clinton.  Real Life as Entertainment is hardly a new phenomenon, but the movies, and now the new information technologies, have so accelerated it that it is now the reigning popular art form.  How this came to pass, and just what it means for our culture and our personal lives, is the subject of this witty, concerned, and sometimes eye-opening book. "A thoughtful, in places chilling, account of the way entertainment values have hollowed out American life." -- The New York Times Book Review

An enthralling appreciation of the monumentally gifted popular artist and cultural icon who challenged Hollywood's standards of beauty and glamour Barbra Streisand has been called the "most successful...talented performer of her generation" by Vanity Fair, and her voice, said pianist Glenn Gould, is "one of the natural wonders of the age." Streisand scaled the heights of entertainment--from a popular vocalist to a first-rank Broadway star in Funny Girl to an Oscar-winning actress to a producer and director. But she has also become a cultural icon who has transcended show business. To achieve her success, Brooklyn-born Streisand had to overcome tremendous odds, not the least of which was her Jewishness. Dismissed, insulted, even reviled when she embarked on a show business career for acting too Jewish and looking too Jewish, she brilliantly converted her Jewishness into a metaphor for outsiderness that would eventually make her the avenger for anyone who felt marginalized and powerless. Neal Gabler examines Streisand's life and career through this prism of otherness--a Jew in a gentile world, a self-proclaimed homely girl in a world of glamour, a kooky girl in a world of convention--and shows how central it was to Streisand's triumph as one of the voices of her age.

Hollywood gilt seit seinen Anfängen als eine Traumfabrik, die mit ihren Bildern tief ins kollektive Unbewusste eindringt. Doch wie begann alles? Wer sind die prägenden Figuren dieser Erfolgsstory? Kaum bekannt ist, dass die Gründer Hollywoods fast ausschließlich jüdische Emigranten aus Europa waren. Neal Gabler verfolgt die Lebensgeschichten von Harry Cohn, William Fox, Carl Laemmle, Louis B. Mayer, Jack und Harry Warner sowie Adolph Zukor, die als Studiogründer den Aufstieg Hollywoods und des Films maßgeblich beeinflussten. Trotz ihrer unterschiedlichen Wege in die Filmbranche fanden diese Männer eine verlockende Möglichkeit in der noch jungen Industrie, die keine sozialen Schranken kannte und mit wenig Kapital zugänglich war. Die „Hollywood-Juden“ zeichneten sich durch ein Gespür für den sich entwickelnden „amerikanischen Traum“ aus und schufen die Organisation, um diese Träume auf Zelluloid zu bannen. In ihrem Streben nach Anpassung schufen sie ein „eigenes Reich“ und gleichzeitig ein mythisches Amerika auf der Leinwand, das bis heute wirkt. Gablers detailreiches Werk bietet einen respektvollen und bedeutenden Beitrag zur Kultur- und Sozialgeschichte des 20. Jahrhunderts.

Die Verwandlung des Lebens in Entertainment ist eines der großen Themen unserer Zeit. Ob es nun um Clinton gegen Kenneth Starr auf der politischen oder O.J.Simpson auf der juristischen Bühne geht: Die öffentliche Meinung hat sich total der Macht des Entertainment unterworfen.§Gabler weist nach, daß die Prinzipien des Show Business nicht nur in der Werbung sondern im ganzen Wirtschaftsleben Fuß gefaßt haben und mit ihrer eigenen Logik das "Profil" und das "Image" der unterschiedlichsten Rollenträger unserer Gesellschaft geradezu diktieren. Das entscheidende Medium in dieser "Republik des Entertainment" ist natürlich das Fernsehen, das als erstes Nachrichten zur Unterhaltung machte und damit das Entertainement zum einzigen Maßstab erhob, einem Diktum, dem sich allmählich auch die Zeitungen beugen mußten.§Die Grenze zweischen Stoff und Geschichte, Tatsachen und Deutungen verschwimmt, und dem einzelnen geht die Authentizitätin und Sebstbestimmung verloren. Das Leben ist zum Film geworden.