America and Americans and Selected Nonfiction

Table Of Contents

Introduction
 
I

 Places of the Heart 1
 Always Something to Do in Salinas 4
 The Golden Handcuff 13
 A Primer on the ’30s 17
 Making of a New Yorker 32
 My War with the Ospreys 41
 Conversation at Sag Harbor 50

II

 Engaged Artist 65
 Dubious Battle in California 71
 The Harvest Gypsies: Squatters’ Camps 78
 Starvation Under the Orange Trees 83
 From Writers Take Sides 88
 I Am a Revolutionary 89
 Duel Without Pistols 91
 The Trial of Arthur Miller 101
 Atque Vale 105
 Dear Adlai 108
 G.O.P. Delegates Have Bigger, Better Badges 110
 L’Envoi 112

III

 Occasional Pieces 117
 Then My Arm Glassed Up 125
 On Fishing 132
 Circus 136
 Random Thoughts on Random Dogs 139
 … like captured fireflies 142
 The Joan in All of Us 144
 A Model T Named “It” 147

IV

 On Writing 151
 The Play-Novelette 155
 My Short Novels 158
 Rationale 161
 Critics-from a Writer’s Viewpoint 163
 Some Random and Randy Thoughts on Books 167
 Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech 172
 
V

 Friends 175
 From About Ed Ricketts 179
 Ernie Pyle 213
 Tom Collins 215
 Robert Capa 217
 Adlai Stevenson 219
 Henry Fonda 223
 Woody Guthrie 225

VI

 Journalist Abroad 227
 The Soul and Guts of France 233
 One American in Paris (fourth piece) 246
 One American in Paris (thirteenth piece) 248
 Positano 251
 Florence: The Explosion of the Chariot 259
 I Go Back to Ireland 262
 The Ghost of Anthony Daly 270

VII

 War Correspondent 275
 Troopship 282
 Waiting 285
 Stories of the Blitz 288
 Lilli Marlene 291
 Bob Hope 293
 Vietnam War: No Front, No Rear 296
 Action in the Delta 299
 Terrorism 304
 Puff, the Magic Dragon 307
 An Open Letter to Poet Yevtushenko 311
 
VIII

 America and Americans 313
 Foreword 317
 E Pluribus Unum 319
 Paradox and Dream 330
 Government of the People 339
 Created Equal 346
 Genus Americanus 354
 The Pursuit of Happiness 369
 Americans and the Land 377
 Americans and the World 383
 Americans and the Future 392
 
Afterword 403
 
Works Cited 405
 
Selected Bibliography of Steinbeck’s Nonfiction 407
 
Index 417