Author(s): Studs Terkel

Current Affairs

A celebration of hope in troubled times, an inspiring book about political engagement in the face of indifference

For Terkel, hope is born of activism, engagement, and a stubborn determination to improve the world. In Hope Dies Last, he talks with a wide range of politically-engaged Americans, musing on fundamental questions: where does hope spring from? How can it sustain us? How does one instil it in others? As well as talking to well-known figures, including Paul Tibbets (pilot of the plane that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima), Sixties activist Tom Hayden and economist John Kenneth Galbraith, Terkel talks to ordinary citizens, such as a death-row inmate pardoned after serving nearly 20 years for a crime he did not commit and a school teacher in a tough inner-city high school. Throughout, he encourages these fascinating people to speak passionately on their life's work.