David Halberstam can be read about online all over the place. You will probably hear a lot about his writings on the Vietnam War, or his Pulitzer Prize at age 30. You may also hear what a genuinely nice person he was.
I never had the honor of meeting David Halberstam; I only read one of his books. But this book changed the way I saw English and History and their relationship to my life. My 9th grade English teacher, Mr. Evans, assigned us all topics from the 1950's and told us to look first to Halberstam's book on the subject. According to amazon.com, the version I read was 816 pages. Once I started reading, I couldn't stop. Before 9th grade, my favorite subjects were Math and Science. But I had a really lame Geometry teacher that year, and I have to say that my Biology teacher wasn't much more exciting. The only classes I cared about that year were English and German - and look where I am now. :) I really don't remember anything about what he said in the book, other than random facts about Levittown and the rise of suburbia that I still remember, but I remember how he said it.
I will always remember David Halberstam's wonderful way of making history come alive. He made me so interested in the 1950's in the United States - not, by most accounts, the most exciting decade in our history - so much so that I read his entire book at the age of 14. I am grieved to hear of his untimely death. May he rest in peace.
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