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The Last Innocent White Man in America: And Other Writings
by John Leonard
Product Group: Book
Publisher: New Press (1993-04)
ISBN: 1565840720
EAN: 9781565840720
Dewy Decimal #: 814.54
Hardcover: 297 pages
Edition: 1st
SKU: BX012-060913004
Condition: Used: Good First Edi
Comments: Stated First Edition. DJ lightly worn, creases on inside flap, not pricecut. Book like new, pgs crisp, clean, tight, unmarked. No remainder mark.
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Editorial Reviews
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Book Description
Far more than simple political commentary, The Last Innocent White Man in America is a passionate marriage of politics and literature that transcends the daily headlines to get at how we imagine ourselves in history. John Leonard is an unrepentant liberal, dissident, scourge, and media critic par excellence. Whether he's writing about bankers or AIDS, Congress or television, Salman Rushdie or Ed Koch, Leonard will make you stop, think, and laugh.
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Customer Reviews
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White Guilt Squared, (and Cubed)
Rating  (2)
Date: 2008-02-07
1 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
Boy, talk about "white guilt". A few choice selection: "what I am afraid the black young man might do to me is nothing compared to what we [white people] deserve"; "The L.A. riots was the only way black people had of getting our attention"; "we came within reach of electing the first black mayor in New York history" (and, therefore, anybody who didn't support Dinkins was a "racist" for being against this noble goal); "the typical looter was a black single mother looting diapers she cannot afford" (due to the evil Republican's "racist" cutting of welfare payments).
And so on and so forth. The author has it all figured out: *EVERYTHING* that happens in America--from the LA riots to the election of conservative politicians--is either "racism" (when whites do it) or "a reaction to racism" (when blacks do it).
Completely missing from this selection of essays is the slightest interest in anything *except* race and race relations. Consider politics: is Dinkins really the best cndidate for the job? Sure, it might be nice to have a black mayor to show NY is multicultural, but is black skin really the #1 qualification needed? And, on the national scene, is there really no other reason except "racism" for voting Republican or being a conservative? If not, why are there also quite a few black Republicans and conservatives?
Or consider crime: if black criminals are some sort of Robin Hoods, "getting back" at white people for the white people's "racism", why are most victims of black criminals other black people? Isn't it more likely that black criminals--like other criminals--don't really care about their victims' skin color, but only about their wallets and purses? Not only does the author not answer such obvious questions, he completely ignores them.
Perhaps the reason the author doesn't realize the obvious answers to such questions disprove his thesis has to do with his personal history. As he tells us, he went to college in an elite liberal west-coast school (Berkeley, IIRC); he grew up in an upper-middle-class neighborhood in California, and now lives in a posh neighborhood in New York, where his wife teaches "at an elite high school" (read: for rich white kids). At no time during his life did he seem to have much connection with either blacks or conservatives.
No wonder he thinks all conservatives are motivated by "racism", and all blacks by "reaction against racism". After all, it's not as if blacks or conservatives are real people motivated by complex desires and beliefs--such an honorable position is reserved to people like the author.
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Cyberpunk Intelligentsia
Rating  (5)
Date: 2007-06-12
Leonard's wit and outlook make this work raw and truly delightful. Readers with agile minds and who like to laugh (even if it's a rueful chuckle) will get a kick out of the rare chance to read this much insight that doesn't devolve into a pure rant.
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John's cutesiness is a veritable ickfest
Rating  (4)
Date: 2006-03-07
4 out of 4 customers found this reveiw helpful
There's 1 line in here that's an absolute scream: "I've just read the memoirs of Mansur Rafizedah, the former chief of Iran's SAVAK (and covert CIA 'asset'), and he feels unappreciated."
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Stupid White Man!
Rating (2)
Date: 2004-01-16
4 out of 15 customers found this reveiw helpful
John Leonard is another sniveling, elitist, upper class leftist American who lives the good, wealthy capitialist life in the suburbs and wants Marxism for the rest of us poor folk. The book is barely passable. Dry, uninteresting, guilt ridden, not much fun at all.He needs to keep his drivel on the pages of that failed liberal magazine The Nation. You know, the one practically nobody outside of rich, elitist lefties reads? The guy is an elitist. Is it any wonder average salt of the Earth Americans can't relate to many liberals? They're snobs who hate America and tell us capitialism is the root of all evil while they reap the most benefits from it. Heck, I guess they must be doing something right. Sure, there are lots of rich rightists, but they at least don't hate America and love communist dictators like Castro. Leonard is a pompus bore who REEKS of pathetic, self-hating white liberal guilt. Spare us. Until the left comes back down to reality and drops the boring guilt trips, they will never gain power in the USA. And hey, part of me wants to believe that liberals have the answers. And they do on the issue of wanting to end the failed drug war for example. But they won't do any of that by publishing more tomes like this. That's just the way it is.
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Wonderful
Rating (5)
Date: 2000-06-12
5 out of 12 customers found this reveiw helpful
Leonard's only fault is that he is too clever. And that's not a fault.
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