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During World War II some 120,000 Japanese Americans were forcibly removed from their homes and detained in concentration camps in several states. These Japanese Americans lost millions of dollars in property and were forced to live in so-called \"assembly centers\" surrounded by barbed wire fences and armed sentries. In this insightful and groundbreaking work, Brian Hayashi reevaluates the three-year ordeal of interred Japanese Americans. Using previously undiscovered documents, he examines the forces behind the U.S. government's decision to establish internment camps. His conclusion: the motives of government officials and top military brass likely transcended the standard explanations of racism, wartime hysteria, and leadership failure. Among the other surprising factors that played into the decision, Hayashi writes, were land development in the American West and plans for the American occupation of Japan. What was the long-term impact of America's actions? While many historians have explored that question, Hayashi takes a fresh look at how U.S. concentration camps affected not only their victims and American civil liberties, but also people living in locations as diverse as American Indian reservations and northeast Thailand.

McWilliams's engrossing life story reveals a figure thoroughly engaged with the issues of his time. Author Peter Richardson deftly interweaves correspondence, diary notes, published writings, and McWilliams's own and others' observations on a colorful and influential cast of characters from Hollywood, New York, Washington, D.C., and the American West. Among those making an appearance are Louis Adamic, John Fante, J. Edgar Hoover, Joseph McCarthy, H. L. Mencken (McWilliams's mentor and role model), Richard Nixon, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Studs Terkel, Hunter S. Thompson, Robert Towne, and more. American Prophet illustrates the arc of McWilliams's life from his early literary journalism through his legal and political activism, his stint in state government, and his two decades as editor of the Nation. Not only will this book introduce McWilliams to a new generation of readers it will also assure his place as one of our most influential and prescient progressive political writers.

Horowitz reviews A Matter of Opinion by Victor S. Navasky and American Prophet: The Life and Work of Carey McWilliams by Peter Richardson.

43-5100 PN4874 2005-12431 CIP Richardson, Peter. American prophet: the life & work of Carey McWilliams. Michigan, 2005. 334p bibl index afp ISBN 0472115243, $35.00

An obituary for Wilson Carey McWilliams who died at the age of 71 is presented. McWilliams, professor of political science at Rutgers, has anchored much of the coverage of electoral politics for a decade or more.