Studs Terkel

Men and women representing a variety of occupations, describe the daily routine of their jobs and express their grievances, aims, and dreams

People Talk about what They Do All Day and how They Feel about what They Do

Working

Oral history evokes the innocent idealism, as well as the terror and horror, of ordinary Americans at home and abroad during World War II

An Oral History of World War II

The Good War

Recreates the character and atmosphere of this dramatic era in a collage of recollections by both well-known and obscure Americans.

An Oral History of the Great Depression

Hard Times

How Blacks and Whites Think and Feel About the American Obsession

Race

Chronicles the thoughts and feelings of some seventy people from widely varying backgrounds in terms of class, race and personal history all inhabitants of a single city in Chicago as a microcosm of the nation at large.

America

Division Street

Traces the transformation in vocation and lifestyle in America during the twentieth century throught the experiences of a very diverse group of elderly men and women.

The Story of Our Century by Those Who've Lived it

Coming of Age

Interviews with emergency room doctors, Hiroshima survivors, AIDS co-workers, and death-row parolees express the beliefs, hopes, fears, and expectations of people confronted with death and life's ultimate experience.

Reflections on Death, Rebirth, and Hunger for a Faith

Will the Circle Be Unbroken?

My American Century

The Studs Terkel Reader

Chicago

Louis Terkel

Outlet

The dean of oral history evokes the innocent idealism, as well as the terror and horror, of ordinary Americans at home and abroad during World War II

Through anecdote and observation, the author portrays life in 1980s America, discusses how it has changed in recent years, and indicates how such changes have affected the values of America's youth

Second Thoughts on the American Dream

The Great Divide

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize: “The richest and most powerful single document of the American experience in World War II” (The Boston Globe). “The Good War” is a testament not only to the experience of war but to the extraordinary skill of Studs Terkel as an interviewer and oral historian. From a pipe fitter’s apprentice at Pearl Harbor to a crew member of the flight that dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki, his subjects are open and unrelenting in their analyses of themselves and their experiences, producing what People magazine has called “a splendid epic history” of WWII. With this volume Terkel expanded his scope to the global and the historical, and the result is a masterpiece of oral history. “Tremendously compelling, somehow dramatic and intimate at the same time, as if one has stumbled on private accounts in letters locked in attic trunks . . . In terms of plain human interest, Mr. Terkel may well have put together the most vivid collection of World War II sketches ever gathered between covers.” —The New York Times Book Review “I promise you will remember your war years, if you were alive then, with extraordinary vividness as you go through Studs Terkel’s book. Or, if you are too young to remember, this is the best place to get a sense of what people were feeling.” —Chicago Tribune “A powerful book, repeatedly moving and profoundly disturbing.” —People

"The Good War"

This memoir by the oral historian and Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Good War is “a masterpiece about a life which itself is a sort of masterpiece” (Oliver Sacks). Chosen as a Best Book of the Year in 2007 by the Chicago Tribune, Publishers Weekly, and Playboy, Studs Terkel’s memoir Touch and Go is “history from a highly personal point of view, by one who has helped make it” (Kirkus Reviews). Terkel takes us through his childhood and into his early experiences—as a law student during the Depression, and later as an actor on both radio and the stage—offering a brilliant and often hilarious portrait of Chicago in the 1920s and ’30s. Describing his beginnings as a disc jockey after World War II, his involvement with progressive politics during the McCarthy era, as well as his career as an interviewer and oral historian, Touch and Go is a testament to Terkel’s “generosity of spirit, sense of social justice and commitment to capture on his ever present tape recorder the voices of those who otherwise would not be heard” (The New York Times Book Review). It is a brilliant lifetime achievement from the man the Washington Post has called “the most distinguished oral historian of our time.” “The master storyteller tells his own story, as no one else can, irresistibly.” —Garry Wills

A Memoir

Touch and Go

The renowned oral historian interviews ordinary people about facing mortality: “It’s the unguarded voices he presents that stay with you.” —The New York Times In this book, the Pulitzer Prize winner and National Book Award finalist Studs Terkel, author of the New York Times bestseller Working, turns to the ultimate human experience: death. Here a wide range of people address the unknowable culmination of our lives, the possibilities of an afterlife, and their impact on the way we live, with memorable grace and poignancy. Included in this remarkable treasury are Terkel’s interviews with such famed figures as Kurt Vonnegut and Ira Glass as well as with ordinary people, from policemen and firefighters to emergency health workers and nurses, who confront death in their everyday lives. Whether a Hiroshima survivor, a death-row parolee, or a woman who emerged from a two-year coma, these interviewees offer tremendous eloquence as they deal with a topic many are reluctant to discuss openly and freely. Only Terkel, whom Cornel West called “an American treasure,” could have elicited such honesty from people reflecting on the lives they have led and what lies before them still. “Extraordinary . . . a work of insight, wisdom, and freshness.” —The Seattle Times

Will the Circle be Unbroken?

Presents the feelings of nearly one hundred Americans on such issues as affirmative action, changing neighborhoods, and secret prejudices.

How Blacks and Whites Think and Feel about the American Obsession

A cross-section of Americans--from an embittered Miss America to Arnold Schwarzenegger, from Jesse Helms to a KKK member, from businessmen and Brahmins to activists and immigrants--speak of their hopes, expectations, and disappointments

Lost and Found

American Dreams

Pulitzer Prize winner Studs Terkel presents an extraordinary documentary of the 20th century, captured with a haunting voice and cadence that only he could achieve. Wise, contemplative, and wondrous, Coming of Age is Terkel in high form--compassionate, generous, always insightful--"(a) kind of national prose poem, a chorus of cacophonous voices offering a jagged, emotionally charged portrait of our times" (San Francisco Chronicle Book Review).

The Story of Our Century by Those Who've Lived It

Traces the transformations in vocation and lifestyle in America during the twentieth century through the experiences of a very diverse group of elderly men and women

Studs Terkel

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