Heroes

by JohnPilger (Author)

• Used

  Hardcover
  1986

  $3.25

  John Pilger has been in the rare position of having witnessed many of the major world upheavals of the past twenty years. More important, he has demonstrated his skill at conveying the atmosphere, and analyzing the nature, of both the great upheavals and domestic tragedies he has encountered as a journalist and film-maker. In Heroes, a book as compelling as it is revealing and uncompromising, he brings together the episodes for which his journalism is renowned. It is a vivid, engrossing and sometimes blackly amusing personal story and also a tribute to the many ordinary people he has witnessed coping with their lives in difficult and often brutal conditions. These are the 'heroes' of John Pilger's narrative. They are the Irish laboring generation f his great-great-great grandfather, who was transported in irons to Australia for 'uttering unlawful oaths', and the London scullery servant he met in a 'female factory' in Sydney where she hd been sent for life. They are the modern poor of Great Britain, whose hopes of a better life have been fostered, for political expediency, and then betrayed. They are the victims of conflicts in Vietnam, Cambodia, Africa, India, the Middle East and Central America; and those denied basic civil liberties in Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union. By turns moving, ironic and angry, John Pilger's always compassionate book maintains a tight grip on the political significance of the events he describes. He identifies some of the silences of imperial history - the largely untold story of the Aborigines, for example. He shows how great powers declare small nations 'expendable' and also how the supposedly impartial language of the media, especial television, often reflects the propaganda of the dominant power. In Cambodia, whose suffering he brought to the attention of the world in 1979, he describes how external forces are today working to restore Pol Pot to power in another guise. John Pilger's research uncovers secrets kept, lies told and unpalatable facts suppressed. His four-year campaign on behalf of a forgotten group of the thalidomide children tells much about established power when it is rabged against the helpless victims of such a disaster. Above all, in Heroes he celebrates the human strengths of those who, far from succumbing to bitterness and despair, have still found room for generosity and humour. By recounting their triumphs, John Pilger demonstrates his conviction that fighting back against the injustices of war or tyranny or poverty is indeed possible.

• Used

  Paperback
  1989

  $3.25

  By the journalist who won the International Reporter of the Year award and the United Nations Association Media Peace Prize, this book brings together the episodes for which his journalism is renowned, analyzing the nature of both these great upheavals and the domestic tragedies he has encountered. The result is as much a personal story as it is a tribute to the ordinary people he has come across living in difficult and brutal conditions. These are the heroes of the book. They include the Irish labouring generation of his great-great grandfather, who was transported in irons to Australia for uttering unlawful oaths ; the modern poor of Britain whose hopes of a better life have been fostered for political expediency, and then betrayed; the victims of conflict in Vietnam, Cambodia, Africa, the Middle East and Central America; the people denied civil liberties in Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union. He identifies some of the silences of imperial history, for example the largely untold story of the Aborigines.

• New

  Paperback
  2001

  $17.78

  The heroes of John Pilger's narrative are the many ordinary people he has witnessed coping with their lives in difficult and often brutal conditions: dissidents in the Soviet Union; victims of conflicts in Vietnam, Cambodia, Africa, India, the Middle East and Central America. They also include the Irish labouring generation of his great-great-grandfather, transported in irons to Australia for uttering 'unlawful oaths'. It is a vivid, engrossing and sometimes blackly amusing personal story covering the periods for which his journalism is renowned. John Pilger has witnessed many of the major world upheavals of the past thirty years, as well as the daily realities of injustices normally hidden from society's view. His reporting of these events has always been distinguished by his tenaciously researched facts - especially facts that governments and powerful interests would prefer to keep secret - and by his unerring and always compassionate pursuit of the truth.