Studs Terkel has interviewed over fifty people with the idea of finding hope in difficult times. This means holding on to that hope of a better life, justice, a better job, and most important, peace, despite all odds, depending on the person interviewed. The subjects of this book are from a broad range of backgrounds like the pardoned Illinois death row inmate Leroy Orange, economist John Kenneth Galbraith, a student organizer, a Mayan worker, Pete seeger, the executive director of the Peace Development Fund Linda Stout, etc. Each story is about someone who has maintained hope in a challenging or difficult moment. The best part is that in each person we find at least a glimmer of hope, no matter how successful or unlucky he or she has been in life.
The book got its name from one of the people Studs Terkel interviewed, Jessie de la Cruz, a retired farm worker.
She said, "La esperenza muera ultima. Hope dies last. You can't lose hope. If you lose hope, you lose everything."

catching a glimpse of the characters of people we have come to know and of those we are introduced to in this book.

to find that hope lives inside all people, rich, poor, old, young, immigrants, students, priests, or politicians.

as all Studs Terkels' books do, proud to be of the human race.

Studs Terkel, now at 93 years of age, was born in 1912 and was raised in a Chicago hotel ran by his mother. It was there that he was first exposed to all kinds of ideas and people. Studs Terkel is the author of eleven books of oral history. He is a member of the Academy of Arts and Letters, a recipient of a Presidential National Humanities Medal, a Pulizer Prize winner, recipient of the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, a George Polk Career Award, and the National Book Critics Circle 2003 Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award. Some of his books are Working, The Good War": An Oral History of World War II,Hard Times, Race, Division Street: America, Will the Circle Be Unbroken? : Reflections on Death, Rebirth, and Hunger for a Faith.

this book is more than a social commentary or an academic study on masses. This book gives the reader the bigger picture, a sort of a panorama of what it means being human what it means to stay an activist, and despite our cynicism at hard times, why we should hang on to having hope.

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Created Dec 14, 2004 at 12:46am • Submit your own review...