Seekers and Partisans

This book recounts the tales of individual Americans, some well-known and some not, who strove to understand their nation and its place in the world in the roiled years 1935–41. David Mayers identifies these individuals as 'seekers' and 'partisans.' Primarily disillusioned idealists, both on the left and right, they hurried from America to explore and be part of a different world. Among those featured are John Robinson, a Black aviator who in 1935 led the Ethiopian air force against the Italian invasion; Agnes Smedley, who joined the Chinese communists during the Sino-Japanese war; eminent Black civil rights theorist W. E. B. Du Bois; Helen Keller, an advocate of the seeing- and hearing-impaired; architect Philip Johnson; Ezra Pound, a lauded poet who championed Mussolini; and Anna Louise Strong, drawn to Stalin's USSR. The lives and stories of this diverse group shed light on the contested nature of American ambitions, aims, and national purpose, and destabilize what it means to be 'American.'