Book Review — Last Call at the Hotel Imperial by Deborah Cohen
Assomebody who values intergenerational solidarity, I love reading about how Americans with adjacent birthyears would approach life in different ways. Along with my desire to learn more about members of “the Lost Generation” — whom I have dubbed as “Hemingrebels” — this read ended up giving me greater context for global history as a whole. That’s why I have zero regrets about spending so much time and energy absorbing the content of Last Call at the Hotel Imperial: The Reporters Who Took on a World at War, which was published in 2022 by historian and humanities professor Deborah Anne Cohen. It’s a hefty read. But by humanizing its historical subjects, Cohen puts in perspective major world events of the past century. She brilliantly illustrates how the Hemingrebel cohort pioneered a generational shift that would reverberate long after the midpoint of the Twentieth Century had passed.I would only recommend this mammoth compendium for readers who absolutely love history — whether it’s reading about American history or world history. Cohen focuses on a quintet of global journalists known as “the inner circle.” This core group consists of John Gunther, Frances Fineman Gunther, Hubert Renfro Knickerbocker (“Knick”), James Vincent Sheean (“Jimmy”), and Dorothy Thompson. Although all five of them are White, what their group lacks in racial diversity it makes up for in philosophical, ideological, and socioeconomic (during their respective childhoods) diversity.
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