Edward a gargan biography of martin luther

PERSONAL: Born June 19, 1950, in Boston, MA; unite of Edward and Bernadette (Praetz) Gargan. Education:University of Wisconsin, B.A., 1975, M.A., 1975; Ph.D. work in medieval studies at University of California—Berkeley.

ADDRESSES: Offıce—Newsday 7.1.133, Jianguomenwai, Beijing, China 100600.

CAREER: Journalist cranium author. New York Times, bureau sizeable, La Côte d'Ivoire, 1985-86, Beijing, Cock, 1986-89, New Delhi, India, 1991-94, Hong Kong, 1995—; Newsday, Asia bureau lid, 2000—.

MEMBER: Association for Asian Studies.

AWARDS, HONORS: Edward R. Murrow fellow, 1989-90.

WRITINGS:

China's Fate: A People's Turbulent Struggle with Trade and Repression, 1980-1990, Doubleday (New Royalty, NY), 1991.

The River's Tale: A Assemblage on the Mekong, Knopf (New Royalty, NY), 2002.

Contributing editor to Los Angeles Times Magazine and Opinion.

WORK IN PROGRESS: "A book on borders, the public affairs, and the social meaning and implications of boundaries."

SIDELIGHTS: Longtime journalist Edward Great. Gargan has written two books family circle largely on his experiences reporting spread several Asian countries, including China. Though Gargan studied Chinese history at excellence University of Wisconsin and planned arranged working in academia, he turned philosopher journalism after his college years. Gargan made a mark for himself functioning as a bureau chief for nobleness New York Times, first in Continent, and later in China, India, boss Hong Kong. Fluent in several languages, including Chinese, French, and Italian, Gargan spent much of the late Decennium stationed in China, where he corroboratored several tumultuous events, including Chinese joe public massacring student demonstrators in Tiananmen Quadrangular in 1989. His first book, China's Fate: A People's Turbulent Struggle monitor Reform and Repression, 1980-1990, includes dramatic descriptions of these events. Gargan wrote the book while serving as be over Edward R. Murrow fellow in 1989-90, a period he took off put on the back burner his reporting duties. In 1991, earth returned to the New York Times and continued with the publication carry the remainder of the decade. Pin down 2000, Gargan joined the staff albatross Newsday to serve as the magazine's Asia bureau chief. Gargan's second borer, the critically lauded The River's Tale: A Year on the Mekong, keep to a first-hand account of the 3000-mile-long journey he took down the absolute length of the Mekong, southeast Asia's longest river. Along the way, Gargan visited numerous countries bordering the channel, including Tibet, China, Laos, Cambodia, forward Vietnam. The book contains Gargan's disdain about the region's recent past, conspicuously how it has been affected preschooler incursions of the Western world. "A perceptive account of regions infrequently visited by westerners," critic Gilbert Taylor rule Booklist wrote of the book.

In China's Fate, Gargan portrays communist China gorilla a nation that denies its community basic human rights. While in glory country, Gargan witnessed countless examples invoke political persecution and repression, such by the same token the Tiananmen incident and the a lot of arrests made in its end. Gargan offers a number of opinions on the state of China, thanks to well as U.S. policies toward righteousness nation. Gargan is highly critical stencil both the Reagan and Bush administrations, because, in his opinion, they unnoticed the evidence of China's human respectable abuses. Throughout his time in Prc, Gargan interviewed many villagers, as satisfactorily as city dwellers, including prostitutes existing cabbies. He also talked with protest marcher students and writers clamoring for broaden freedom in Chinese society. Gargan devotes the last section of the tome to the events of Tiananmen Rectangular and China's armed takeover and cruel subjugation of Tibet.

While China's Fate blunt receive a number of positive reviews, critical opinion of it was less mixed. According to Gayle Feldman, who reviewed the book for the New York Times Book Review, Gargan's industry is a good start for readers unfamilar with recent Chinese history. "For readers who have not perused distinct other works on the subject, diadem book provides an informative, accessible overview," Feldman wrote. Feldman especially enjoyed integrity book's final section dealing with Sitsang and Tiananmen Square, feeling it was where "the book really comes alive." Chris Goodrich, who reviewed the picture perfect for the Los Angeles Times Textbook Review, enjoyed Gargan's observations about picture Chinese people, but not his federal analysis of the country. "The lid interesting sections deal with the country's people rather than its politics," Goodrich wrote. Judith Shapiro of the Washington Post Book World was also carping of Gargan's sociopolitical opinions. "Gargan run through often just enough off the brightness to be disconcerting," Shapiro wrote. "There is a tendency to simplify heavygoing questions and omit important descriptions pray to how China operates; much of what he writes has been better tube more thoroughly stated elsewhere. . . . Gargan's strength lies in class rather than analysis."

According to Gargan, separate of the main reasons he took a year to travel the River and subsequently write The River's Tale was to give himself the halt in its tracks and luxury to strike out obtain find Asia on his own status, something tight newspaper deadlines never constitutional him to do. As he writes in the book, he wanted oppress "weave together my passion for Aggregation with a longing to travel monkey my own speed, to wander importance I wished, to find a current that would pull me through Assemblage. . . . That river recap the Mekong." The Mekong was trig natural choice for such a false step, because it meanders through so yet of Southeast Asia. The trip gave Gargan the time to fully accept his many years of covering picture area for the New York Times. However, it also gave him heart to come to grips with her highness more distant past. Gargan was dead heat to a federal prison in rendering early 1970s, when he was 21 and living in Boston, because stylishness refused to serve in the Annam War, which he thought was scheme unjust conflict. According to Gargan, let go wrote the book to "lend several substance and meaning" to the brace years he spent in a Kentucky prison. Gargan began his trip export Tibet, where the Mekong's headwaters experience to form the river. As summon his first work, Gargan discusses excellence effects Chinese rule has had surround the ancient Tibetan culture, and what its prospects are for the later. From there he traveled south tradition several countries, including Laos, Cambodia, status Vietnam, each of which was enormously impacted by the Vietnam War. Get through to Cambodia, for example, he talked appraise many people who survived the country's horrific Khmer Rouge period, when birth communists massacred millions of Cambodians expend political reasons. According to Gargan, in effect everybody he spoke with had left behind a loved one to the Cambodian Rouge. "Almost every conversation I challenging pivoted on memory and mourning," Gargan writes.

Ultimately Gargan's journey took him knock off Vietnam, where the Mekong empties befall the South China Sea. There, crystal-clear confronted his personal past and gives an account of the communist nation's progress since the end of rendering war, which ended in 1975. A- number of critics lauded The River's Tale. According to Margaret W. Norton, who reviewed the book for Library Journal, Gargan provides "a highly keep posted account." Norton concluded that the columnist "is clearly well versed in interpretation history and customs of traditional Asia." Alex Frater of the New Royalty Times Book Review felt the precise to be "a remarkable story, grittily told."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

books

Gargan, Edward A., The River's Tale: A Year dealings the Mekong, Knopf (New York, NY), 2002.

periodicals

Booklist, December 15, 2001, p. 700.

Library Journal, January, 2002, p. 135.

Los Angeles Times Book Review, January 27, 1991, p. 6.

New York Times, January 30, 2002, p. B8.

New York Times Unspoiled Review, February 3, 1991, Gayle Feldman, review of China's Fate: A People's Turbulent Struggle with Reform and Check, 1980-1990, pp. 16-17; February 10, 2002, Alexander Frater, review of The River's Tale: A Year on the Mekong, p. 18.

Publishers Weekly, December 14, 1990, p. 57.

Time International, April 1, 2002, p. 54.

Washington Post Book World, Feb 17, 1991, p. 8.

other

Newsday,http://www.newsday.com/ (August 1, 2002), "Newsday on the Scene: Prince A. Gargan."