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List Price: $14.95
Our Price: $10.17
Your Save: $ 4.78 ( 32% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Vintage
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Average Customer Rating: 
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 330.092
EAN: 9780375700064
ISBN: 0375700064
Label: Vintage
Manufacturer: Vintage
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 368
Publication Date: 2003-05-13
Publisher: Vintage
Release Date: 2003-05-13
Studio: Vintage
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Editorial Reviews:
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In The Fly Swatter, Nicholas Dawidoff--bestselling author of The Catcher Was a Spy--vividly reconstructs the life of his grandfather, Alexander Gerschenkron-the Harvard professor who knew the most.
A fascinating character, Gerschenkron feuded with Vladimir Nabokov and John Kenneth Galbraith, flirted with Marlene Dietrich, and played chess with Marcel Duchamp and one-upped both Isiah Berlin and (allegedly) Ted Williams. At Harvard, this celebrated polyglot was known as “The Great Gerschenkron.” He was an influential economic theorist who knew twenty languages and so much about so many other things that he was offered chairs in three departments. All this after beginning life with traumatic dramatic escapes from the Bolsheviks (in 1920) and the Nazis (in 1938). Riveting and eloquent, The Fly Swatter's most unusual accomplishment is that it succeeds in telling the extraordinary story of a man's soul.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: An Exceptional Tribute Beautifully Written
Comment: A biography as magnificent and entertaining as its subject: Alexander Gerschenkron, a Russian Jewish immigrant, who became a world champion chess player, a linguist (fluent in over two dozen languages, both ancient and modern), an economist (his theories still un-refuted today), and a Harvard intellectual. The author is Gerschenkron's grandson, and the entire book feels warm and loving, but for me the most memorable part comes from the story of Gerschenkron's reaction to the student riots in the late 1960's at Harvard. Gerschenkron's reply to this disorder is unforgettable because he had witnessed first hand the chaos and the thuggery of both the Bolsheviks and of Nazism. He barely escaped from each. His speech is the one and only time he ever mentioned these parts of his life. Delivered to the entire Harvard University and Cambridge community, his words of quiet dignity will surprise you, challenge your assumptions, make you see our country anew, and hold you rapt just as they gripped the entire town that day when everything stopped as citizens gathered around their radios to listen to this great man.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Every family has one
Comment: Maybe it's because my dad was an old world eccentric, or maybe it's because I love vivid writing and word play, but I loved this affectionate, wide open wild ride of a memoir of Dawidoff"s resilient grandfather. This book is deserving of all the awards it got and merits a wider readership.
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