John Tebbel
Personal Information
Description
John Tebbel was a journalist, educator, and media historian whose major work chronicled the history of American book publishing from the colonial era to the late 20th century. A newspaperman by training, Mr. Tebbel worked in nearly every aspect of publishing, as a reporter, journalism professor, magazine and book editor, historical novelist and the author of more than two dozen nonfiction books. A former chairman of New York University's journalism department, he was also the first director of the university's Graduate Institute of Book Publishing, founded in 1958. Tebbel’s best-known work was "A History of Book Publishing in the United States" (Bowker), a 20-year undertaking published in four volumes from 1972 to 1980. His other books include "An American Dynasty: The Story of the McCormicks, Medills and Pattersons" (1947), "The Life and Good Times of William Randolph Hearst" (1952), "The American Magazine: A Compact History" (1969) and the novels "Touched With Fire" (1952) and "A Voice in the Streets" (1954).
Books
Touched with Fire
Turning the World Upside Down
Based largely on eyewitness accounts, this reconstruction of the best known and least understood major event in our history'' depicts the American Revolution not as a rational movement based on Locke's ideas--but as a conflict buffeted by the passions of unruly men. The title refers not only to the song played by the British at their Yorktown surrender but also to the upheaval caused by the eight-year conflict. Although his descriptions of the Boston Massacre and Boston Tea Party push his narrative off to a rousing, iconoclastic start, Tebbel (coauthor, The Magazine in America, 1991, etc.) doesn't expand the pre-Revolutionary era beyond the Massachusetts theater and can't quite maintain the breathless pace of these set pieces. In his eagerness to save the American Revolution from mummification, he uses present tense and colloquial narration, sometimes to arch effect (And where is our boy Lafayette?''). He also exaggerates our contemporary glorification of the war (every schoolkid still knows that these were the times that try men's souls''). But Tebbel does detail to often stunning effect the problems that plagued the patriots: starving and badly paid soldiers; a citizenry as apathetic as it was opportunistic; a dithering and impotent Continental Congress; recruiting scandals; profiteering contractors; and vicious attacks and reprisals by rebels and loyalists. Although the author admires George Washington for his dogged perseverance and Daniel Morgan for his buckskin charisma, he takes pleasure in the portrait dipped in acid-- including ones of Samuel Adams, the Boston firebrand never squeamish about bending truth in the service of propaganda; John Paul Jones, the tyrannical sea-dog-turned-legend by refusing to give up the battle; and General Charles Lee, Washington's one-time second-in-command, a misanthrope who loved dogs more than people- -and who, while in prison, plotted to betray the rebels. Not quite the bottom-rail view of history to which it aspires, nor as revisionist as it hopes--but often vividly impressionistic. (Four maps)
The magazine in America, 1741-1990
This carefully researched and sweeping work ranges from tales of the earliest magazine, The General Magazine of Benjamin Franklin and American Magazine of Andrew Bradford, to contemporary giants such as TV guide and Sports Illustrated, and includes a history of the business press.
Between covers
Shortened version of the author's four-volume A history of book publishing in the United States.
Opportunities in journalism
Discusses the field of newspaper journalism including its history, various jobs, career opportunities, and educational requirements.
The Battle of Fallen Timbers, August 20, 1794
Examines the events leading to the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794 which ended Indian and British control of the Ohio Valley.
The American Indian Wars
Before Europeans came to the vast region that is now the United States, over one million Native Americans inhabited the land, from the Northern ice wastes to the Southern swamps, from the Eastern forests to the Western plains. After four centuries of nearly continuous warfare, fewer than four hundred thousand remained. This is the dramatic, heartrending account of their survival...against all odds.
George Washington's America
An account of the travels of Washington as he lived out his life as surveyor, general and statesman adds much to the picture of late 18th century America and takes much of the lacklustre from the standardized portraits of the ""father of our country"". Stating at the outset his debt to Freeman's four volume study, Tebbel, a prolific writer himself, divides his study into five parts- a survey of the limits of Washington's America and his explorations therein; journeys as commander-in-chief of the army; residence in New York; residence in Philadelphia; and his return to the south and his own region. Careful chronology within subdividing chapters spotlights historical orientation while the author's fortunate sense of the drama of time, place and character provides the fill-in, setting the developing political issues, the economy of the young country and, most particularly, the thought and personality of Washington himself in pronounced relief. The last chapter especially, on his old age, presents a resume of the opinions others had of Washington, and culis from them a fresh view that does much to humanize him. Readable.
George Horace Lorimer and the Saturday evening post
Records the professional career of George Horace Lorimer, editor of the Saturday Evening Post from 1898 to 1936.