![]() ![]() Throughout the long arc of his career Terkel dedicated himself to revealing the wisdom of others. Hard Times was followed by Working, about the relationship between people and their work. After Division Street was published in 1967, Schriffin asked him to do a book on the Great Depression. ![]() ![]() As for his writing career, Andre Schiffrin, the head of publishing at Pantheon Books who would go on to found The New Press, acted on the advice of a friend and asked Terkel to write a book about Chicago. As he explains, an unnamed listener of his radio program called him after an interview to encourage him to spend more air time with guests. In the film’s narrative, Terkel’s role as “our chief listener” came about by happenstance. That was the question Terkel spent his career answering. The documentary (which HBO will air on May 15 and 24) depicts Terkel as genuinely enthralled with television and radio, in part because of their ability to vividly answer one question: What was it like to be an American in the twentieth century? The film does little to capture anything other than the prevailing idea of Terkel-the congenial, rabble-rousing oral historian always on the right side of history. ![]()
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