David Maraniss, 'A Good American Family'

David Maraniss discusses his book, "A Good American Family",at Politics and Prose on 5/15/19.

In his twelfth book, Maraniss, a two-time Pulitzer-winner and Washington Post associate editor, combines the biographical skills he honed in his lives of Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and others, with the command of history that won him the J. Anthony Lucas Prize for They Marched into Sunlight to tell the story of his father. Elliott Maraniss commanded an all-black company during the Second World War but was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1952. He lost his job and was blacklisted for five years, yet retained his faith in his country. Interweaving his father’s story with those of his defenders and accusers, Maraniss explores what it means to be an American through an intimate look at how issues of race, communism, and first amendment freedoms affect ordinary citizens.

David Maraniss is an associate editor at The Washington Post and a distinguished visiting professor at Vanderbilt University. He has won two Pulitzer Prizes for journalism and was a finalist three other times. Among his bestselling books are biographies of Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Roberto Clemente, and Vince Lombardi, and a trilogy about the 1960s – Rome 1960; Once in a Great City (winner of the RFK Book Prize); and They Marched into Sunlight (winner of the J. Anthony Lucas Prize and Pulitzer Finalist in History). A Good American Family is his twelfth book.

Produced by Tom Warren