Murray Books

Nearly every Norman Rockwell coffee table book includes his famous "Four Freedoms" paintings. Most tell the basic story behind the works -- how the artist was inspired by President Franklin Roosevelt's State of the Union speech of 1941, how he sought without success to find sponsorship by a government agency, and how the paintings were originally published in four issues of Saturday Evening Post magazine in 1943. This generously illustrated volume by Stuart Murray and James McCabe tells a much more complete -- and much more fascinating -- story.

The two authors begin with President Roosevelt and the genesis of the Four Freedoms speech and the Atlantic Charter. They trace the creative process that resulted in Rockwell's "Freedom of Speech," "Freedom of Worship," "Freedom from Want," and "Freedom from Fear."

Beyond the paintings themselves, Murray and McCabe break new ground. They describe in detail how the paintings were published (first in the magazine and then by the Office of War Information) and how they toured the nation. The first exhibition was in Hecht's Department Store in Washington, with Supreme Court Associate Justice William O. Douglas speaking. The paintings and posters sold many war bonds, and the two authors well describe the organization and spirit of wartime bond marketing.

Looking beyond the artist, Murray and McCabe describe the enthusiastic reception of the paintings by the American public, quoting reviews, commentaries, and letters written by ordinary Americans. Rockwell had correctly sensed that Americans wanted more than words to understand the war aims of the United States and the United Nations. His great gift to the American people was to first visualize the rich ideals that President Roosevelt had described, and then to render them on canvas in an accessible way.

This book has valuable appendices. It is the only volume I have seen that includes the essays and stories that accompanied the paintings in four issues of the Saturday Evening Post. They complemented the paintings, and although they bear the marks of their decade, they are still powerful.

In the short story ("parable") that accompanied "Freedom of Speech," Booth Tarkington imagined that the young artist Adolph Hitler and the young journalist Benito Mussolini met "in a small chalet on the mountain road from Verona to Innsbruck." In a conversation they admitted their will to power, and the need for a "purge." Tarkington well understood fascism.

Stephen Vincent Benet's essay on "Freedom from Fear" traced the increasing connectedness of the world's nations (what we now call "globalization," evident even then) and how it can strengthen or weaken human freedoms. He portrayed the halting, slow, and difficult advance of freedom in the face of fear, signified in 1943 by aerial bombardment.

The essay by Carlos Bulosan -- an immigrant from the Philippines, then an itinerant worker on the West Coast who had to be tracked down by the Post's editors -- on "Freedom from Want" is a moving call for social justice. Its strong New Deal sound reminds this reader of Henry Fonda's peroration at the end of "The Grapes of Wrath."

The powerful and stirring essay by Will Durant that accompanied "Freedom to Worship" described how religion strengthens American society. He rightly criticized German, Japanese, and Italian fascism for their opposition to faith. The leaders of the Axis powers, he wrote, "leave their people no religion but war, and no God but the state."

The book also includes the long, thoughtful, and challenging essay that accompanied the separate printing of the paintings by the Office of War Information. Less memorable and less lasting are five essays specially commissioned for this book by John Frohnmayer, Theodore H. Evans, James MacGregor Burns, Brian Urquhart, and William J. vanden Heuvel.

The United States is once again at war. Terrorists on one side, the men and women in our armed forces on the other -- both know that America's freedoms are somehow at the heart of the conflict. This book can prompt our generation to consider how the "Four Freedoms" and other American ideals bear on the struggle.

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This book is obviously a labor of love. The authors know the area well, and in detail. They appreciate all the layers of culture, from prehistoric through Etruscan and ancient Roman right down to modern life. I spent a week bicycling in Lazio using this guide, and was never disappointed. In addition, you will want to have a good map (e.g. the TCI 1:200,000 map) and perhaps a restaurant guide if eating well is important to you.

This is a plain print book, with few illustrations or diagrams, but with a useful table to help you find places that interest you (e.g. Renaissance gardens).

A pity it's out of print.

From Preface to English Edition:

"On April 23, 1943, Good Friday, Maria Valtorta received the first of a series of 'dictations' - mainly attributed to Christ, but also, on occasion, to God the Father, the Holy Spirit, Mary, and other figures associated with Divine Revelation - which would extend over a number of years. During that period, in response to Christ's invitation, she contemplated and wrote in narrative form all of the major episodes connected with the life of the Redeemer.

This new phase in her human and, above all, spiritual development did not appear abruptly, but had been precede by many years of progressive union with Christ, culminating in an act of self-sacrifice whereby she had offered herself as a 'victim soul' desirous of cooperating with the work of redemption.

Bedridden as a result of serious and growing infirmity, virtually cut off from normal social life, and generally not understood by those immediately in contact with her, under the insistent touch of inspiration she blossomed into a prolific writer, always maintaining, however, that the content of her 'dictated' or revealed works was not a literary creation of her own, but that she was merely a willing instrument in the hands of God and wrote down what she heard or saw.

The magnitude of her production and the sources to which it is attributed present us with an extraordinary spiritual event in the middle of the 20th C which warrants attentive consideration.

The body of her works is entirely sealed by an intense perception of 'Catholicity' - what it means to be a Catholic believer at this stage in history, with a lively awareness of the 20 centuries of Christianity which have already transpired and of the challenges which now face the Church of all mankind.

'The Notebooks. 1945-1950' is the third and last volume to appear in English of the three works published in Italian under the title 'Quaderni' which contain additional visions and dictations received by Maria Valtorta during the period in which she contemplated and recorded the events which would constitute her major 'opus' on the life of Christ.

The present work contains a wide variety of complementary materials which complete the Valtortan contribution to the mystical understanding of Christ's presence and action in his saints and in human history. The violent, but faith-filled experiences of martyrs, both known and unknown; the treachery of Satan in trying to torment the writer with doubts and anguish over the genuineness of her labor and Christ's timely intervention to protect her; messages and instruction granted to those needing special guidance in their trials; clarification of specific problems facing contemporary thought, such as the question of evolution; a description of the Lord's gestures of intimacy and closeness to those who are deeply and selfless united to Him; and a long concluding commentary on the content of the Book of Revelation are some of the many highlights of this always surprising and enriching spiritual document."

- David G. Murray, Rome, August 28, 2002

Originally, I felt I would write this book as simply the history of an amazing comeback of a company following the disastrous "catastrophe" of the Three Mile Island accident.

The company recovered from the very brink of bankruptcy and possibly the worst financial, legal, technical, and public relations problems ever faced by an electric utility.

Then,later I realized that this first person account by several people involved in the struggle offered some real lessons applicable to the future of Nuclear Power in this country.

Today,with the nation again considering building new nuclear plants almost 25 years after the TMI accident,both the pro and anti-nuclear camps will find value in again considering the lessons learned from the accident and the recovery.

Hence,the publication of "NUCLEAR TURNAROUND".

My mother bought this book for me when I was a pig-tailed tomboy, freckles and all; and I have never forgotten it. While it is a simply told tale, suitable for kids, it's lively dialogue was what I remembered most and went back for all these years later. I wasn't disappointed. The book is a treasure - and I wanted to share my review of it with anyone looking for an older book that will make you laugh. Mr. Webb must surely have been uniquely qualified to tell this kind of tale - I would imagine he lived some of it himself.

It's baseline is a lot like Auntie Mame; the young boy comes West to find a long-lost Uncle Tug whom he has romantically built up in his youthful mind as a hero who will rescue him from a dismal home life from where he desires to escape yet not abandon his family. But the dialogue is all it's own, and anyone who has lived on a ranch will be refreshed by it; glad that there was a world like that once, and that at least some people wrote of it.

I highly recommend this little book for anyone to read and there's more truth than fiction within it's telling. The events, the horses, the crusty characters, the methods used in the running of the mustangs all were done that way in real life as told me by my own parents. But intertwined in this struggle between personalities of both men and animal, and where neutral kids could be mostly just in the way - was the honesty and simplicity of the era.

It would be nice to be able to go back and take the journey again; but since we can't, this kind of book is one of the next best ways to do it.

I and other students referred to "An Introduction to Gaelic Poetry" again and again while at university. Yes, it is an introduction to Gaelic poetry and song, but it contains copious information about Gaelic Scotland and its relationship to Gaelic Ireland. Readers will learn something about the history of the Scottish Highlands through the words of Highlanders themselves. Most books about the Highlands are written by outsiders and many are patronizing and hostile. The book begins with 'Bardic Poetry', the poetry of the professional poets who travelled freely between the houses of the Gaelic noblity in Scotland and Ireland. Following chapters deal with the major political events of the 16th-20th centuries: the "English" Civil War (the War of the Three Kingdoms), the Jacobite Rebellions, the clearances, and World Wars I & II. Alongside all this is the poetry of gentler times: women's songs, love songs and songs of exile. All poetry and songs have been translated into English and unfortunately no Gaelic except the titles has been published. People who would like to read the Gaelic originals would have to read books such as J.L. Campbell's "Highland Songs of the Forty-five". Recently a bilingual Gaelic and English anthology of Gaelic poetry of the 20th century has been publlished, edited by Ronald Black. "An Introduction to Gaelic Poetry" is a great book for anyone interested in the Scottish Highlands.

A great smorgasboard of all things Irish, including a history of the isle. I read this before going to Ireland in '96 and it was a great primer, giving me a taste of Irish mythology to Irish recipies.

This excellent book explains why the Major Government privatised rail, privatisation’s effects, and what we should do about it.

Privatisation cost the country £6 billion. We gave Railtrack £1000 million a year, £350 million of which it gave to its shareholders. It collapsed last October owing £1.8 billion to subcontractors and £700 million in bills and interest payments to bondholders and banks. The directors of the rail firms prioritised their shareholders’ interests over trivia like safety and public service. They cut costs by sacking maintenance workers – there were 31,000 in 1994, only 19,000 in 2000. Rolling stock, track and signalling equipment are all in a far worse state than under investment-starved British Rail.

One caveat: Murray claims that the EU had nothing to do with the privatisation. But EU Regulation EC91/440 ordered that management and financing of track and train services be separate, run on strictly commercial lines and be totally independent of the state. The Commission wants to open up all public services likewise. (See its report COM (2000) 580, ‘Services of a General Interest’.)

This government, like its predecessor, opposes introducing the best Automatic Train Protection system, first recommended in 1988, because it would cost too much. We have the world’s highest standard rail fares: fares on the London-Manchester route – a Virgin Trains monopoly –have risen by 50% since 2000.

Tested in practice, privatisation has failed to produce a safer, more reliable and more punctual service. The government’s response? Introduce the same failed system into London Underground, education and the National Health Service. Don’t Labour’s focus groups ever include any of the 76% of us who want rail renationalised? Or the 89% who oppose handing public services over to private firms? Why doesn’t the government just renationalise rail? Because it is not democratic: it is totally beholden to private finance.

Under PFI, sorry, PPP, firms would be borrowing the money: why not let the public sector do that itself? And we could build the trains and rolling stock we need at Derby, York and Birmingham. We want a publicly run, democratically accountable, integrated railway, instead of the 100-piece, privatised anarchy we now endure.

I keep this book by my bedside, and when I am feeling down or discouraged, I pull it out to get my thoughts moving in a better direction. Inspiring, funny, heartwarming by turns, it's like having tea with your wisest friend.

A collection of essays, commentaries and reviews noteworthy for their unorthodox historical and social perspectives. Murray states a compelling case against social science, which he condemns as a tool used by white supremacists to achieve aegregation, negation and subjugation. Topics include White Norms for Black Deviation, The Illusive Black Middle Class. and James Baldwin, Protest Fiction, and the Blues Tradition. An excellent companion volume to The Unheavenly City Revisited by Ed Banfield. Especially recommended for journalists and educators.