Pulitzer: A Life in Politics, Print, and Power

Like Alfred Nobel, Joseph Pulitzer is better known today for the prize that bears his name than his contribution to history. Yet, in 19th-century industrial America, while Carnegie provided the steel, Rockefeller the oil, Morgan the money, and Vanderbilt the railroads, Pulitzer invented the modern mass media.
This biography traces the epic story of this Jewish Hungarian immigrant’s rise through American politics and into journalism where he accumulated immense power and wealth only to fall blind and become a lonely tormented recluse wandering the globe. But not before Pulitzer transformed American journalism into a medium of mass consumption and immense influence.
As the first media baron to recognize the vast social changes of the industrial revolution, he harnessed all the converging elements of entertainment, technology, business, and demographics and made the newspaper an essential feature of urban life. Pulitzer used his influence to advance a progressive political agenda and his power to fight those who opposed him. The course he followed led him to battle Theodore Roosevelt who, when President, tried to send Pulitzer to prison. The grueling legal battles Pulitzer endured for freedom of the press changed the landscape of American newspapers and politics.

$29.99, 576 pages, ISBN 978-0-06-079869-7 (HarperCollins)

The Rose Man of Sing Sing: A True Tale of Life, Murder, and Redemption in the Age of Yellow Journalism

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Library Journal

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Publishers Weekly

"Chapin was quite a characrter, and Mr. Morris describes him with verve and an eye for colorful detail (not to mention occasional breathlessness) that match the riproaring tabloid era he lived in."
New York Times

"James McGrath Morris's well-researched narrative has the pace and detail of an engrossing historical novel."
Boston Herald

"Damned good story in any era."
The Washington Post

"with this scrupulously researched book, Mr. Morris resuces an engaging character form historical oblivion and opens a window onto a raucus, roiling epoch that played itself out in 22-point type."
New York Observer
 

$18.00, 480 pages, ISBN 0-8323-2268-3 (Fordham University Press)

Jailhouse Journalism: The Fourth Estate Behind Bars

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Corrections Today

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Punishment & Society

Belongs in the permanent collection of anyone interested in prisons or journalism."
The Angolite

$24.95, 251 pages, ISBN 0-7658-0891-9 (Transaction Books)