Ben Robertson

Ben Robertson

South Carolina Journalist and Author

  • Auteur: Peeler, Jodie
  • Éditeur: University of South Carolina Press
  • ISBN: 9781643360232
  • eISBN Pdf: 9781643360249
  • eISBN Epub: 9781643360249
  • Lieu de publication:  South Carolina , United States
  • Année de publication électronique: 2019
  • Mois : Octobre
  • DDC: 070.92
  • Langue: Anglais

In Ben Robertson: South Carolina Journalist and Author, Jodie Peeler tells the story of a man consumed with a need to see the world but whose heart never really left home. Drawing heavily on Robertson's writings and personal papers, Peeler describes his active career as a journalist, which took him to Hawaii, Australia, Europe, Java, New York, and Washington, D.C.

The early years of Robertson's career were spent as a reporter for the New York Herald-Tribune. After several years as a freelance writer, he became a World War II correspondent covering England for the New York newspaper PM. While Robertson's wartime dispatches drew attention and praise, they represented but one aspect of the man's wide-ranging works and career, for the Ben Robertson who witnessed destruction and heroism in the fires of London was also a proud son of South Carolina.

In addition to his work as a journalist. Robertson wrote three books. Travelers' Rest, a fictionalized account of his ancestors' settling in South Carolina, ruffled southern feathers. In I Saw England he presents a firsthand account of the Battle of Britain and advocates for the United States to intervene in World War II. His heartfelt memoir, Red Hills and Cotton, which recalls his boyhood days in Pickens County and calls for the South to look to the future, became a southern classic. In 1943, while en route to his new job as London bureau chief for the New York Herald-Tribune, Robertson lost his life in a plane crash.

Throughout his decidedly brief but adventurous life, Robertson never stopped being what one friend described as "a sentimental South Carolinian who carried his dreams on the tip of his tongue." And over time he evolved into a progressive voice calling on the South to reevaluate its attitudes on race and economics. This is the story of that proud South Carolinian, from the dreams that propelled him around the world to the sentiment that always called him home.

  • Cover
  • BEN ROBERTSON
  • Title
  • Copyright
  • CONTENTS
  • List of Illustrations
  • Acknowledgments
  • Prologue
  • Chapter 1 American Pilgrims
  • Chapter 2 A Childhood in the Red Hills
  • Chapter 3 An Education
  • Chapter 4 In Exile
  • Chapter 5 The Hope of the Herald Tribune
  • Chapter 6 Hitting at Windmills
  • Chapter 7 A Vague, Confused Plan
  • Chapter 8 A Literary Gale
  • Chapter 9 A New South
  • Chapter 10 “My God, what a war!”
  • Chapter 11 London Is Burning
  • Chapter 12 “What are we going to do about it?”
  • Chapter 13 The Advocate
  • Chapter 14 Humble Times for Eagles
  • Chapter 15 A Southern Record
  • Chapter 16 Cynical Men
  • Chapter 17 Trip 9035
  • Chapter 18 An Upcountry Legacy
  • Notes
  • Bibliography
  • Index
  • About the Author

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