Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families

Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families | J. Anthony Lukas | Fabulous insight into Boston's 1970's busing crisis

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Common Ground: A T...

	Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families J. Anthony Lukas Vintage, 1986 - 688 pages average customer review:based on 16 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Winner of 3 different awards, this is a story of the busing crisis in Boston.

Hugely Important

A hugely important work, immense in its scope. This book is an excellent educational experience, on at least the levels of racial attitudes in the 60's and beyond, Boston and New England history, local and national politics, and social stratification. Common ground is detailed in its factual accounts, empathic with its central characters, and insightful yet unbiased. A must-read for anyone from the Northeast, and a should-read for everyone else. I hope to read this at least every other year, so as not to forget its importance and cultural significance.

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Fabulous insight into Boston's 1970's busing crisis

I thought this book was breathtaking. J. Anthony Lukas does a masterful job telling the story of the Boston busing crisis from the perspective of 3 individuals involved (in 1974 a judge ordered the city of Boston to bus children into schools outside their own neighborhoods in order to achieve racial diversity; problems ensued). You learn about a young, idealistic upperclass white man who works for Boston Mayor Kevin White, a poor black mother who is concerned for her children and their education, and an Irish Catholic family living in Charlestown who resent the changes being imposed on them by others. Lukas tells you about each family's history and presents their story and perspectives in a way that you can understand and relate to.

As a resident of Boston, I really enjoyed learning more about an important period of time for the city. I think that by putting human faces to the story he personalized it for people who didn't experience it themselves. Boston still does not have neighborhood high schools - students submit their top 3 choices and then are assigned to a school - and I would imagine this is a vestige of the 1974 court ruling.

A great book.

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one of the best political books I ever read - 6 stars!!!!

This book is an absolutely magnificent tableau of American politics in all its complexity and ambiguity. Lukas investigated the lives of three families in a fundamental controversy on the future of America: forced school busing.

The first family are brahmans, from Harvard Law and straight into the Mayor's office in a moment of idealism that would forever change his career. He is a mechanic of political change, who is trying to lead a good and honorable life. Then there is a working class Irish family, from the other side of the tracks. The widowed mother becomes a great adversary of the process underway, in no way racist but opposed for very practical and personal reasons to forced busing. Finally, there is a black family, struggling to get by amidst dashed hopes and pathological mental illness, the supposed benificiariers of a great social experiment. The portrayals of these lives - all real and thoroughly investigated by an absolutely first-rate investigative journalist - are beyond novellistic realism. The personalities are so vivid and well drawn that it is simply astonishing.

Then there is the wider political/historical milieu, Boston in the early 1970s. Lukas stops at nothing to create a composite picture: there is the mayor Kevin White (whom I was astonished to learn was considered by Jimmy Carter as a running mate in 1976), Ted Kennedy, and scores of others including the archdiscese and various minor politician-demagogues hoping to make a career out of the crisis. The portrait is as beautiful and detailed as the Sistine Chapel, exposing the best, the worst, and the unexpected in American politics of the period. Lukacs' talent to do all of this is simply extraordinary. Late in the writing, I learned, he had to throw out one of the three families and begin the entire process over again in the name of thoroughness. No wonder he won a pulitzer.

This book also spoke to me personally. I was in Boston for part of the time, in the very neighborhood where the brahmans lived as a personal social experiment, and I witnessed many of the events as they unfolded. Lukacs' evocation of it all struck me as entirely accurate, pitch perfect to where people were coming from and what they hoped and feared. As such, this book is a crucible of the American race conundrum, a turning point of the greatest political import, perhaps equal to the Vietnam war protests.

And the writing! It is elegant and clear beyond imagination, approaching what I would call genius, the product of an unusually driven mind. The characters are so vivid that I will refelct on them until the day I die. This is destined to become a classic, like Tacitus or Thucydides - the quality is truly that high. I have read HUNDREDS of political-historical books, and this one ranks as near the top as a handful.

Recommended as a true must-read. Get it, make the effort, for an excpetional reading experience.

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current events raised to the level of art

Though Common Ground is non-fiction it reads like great literature.So detailed and moving is the story of the families and individuals that Lukas traces, that while you read this involving and complex tale of idealistic politics and failed expectations, you end up caring deeply for all the people whose lives over two decades are being traced.If you were going to read one book to understand the state of race relations in the late 20th century this would be it.There are only a few books that I have read that made me want to meet the author and thank him for writing it.This is one of those.

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Best Modern History of Boston Ever

In you are interested in modern Boston history, and why Boston is the way it is, there is no better book. The subject of this book is busing, but that is only one (important) element of the book. Excellent, well-researched overview of Boston's different ethnic clans, geography, religious groups (the most fascinating history of the Boston Roman Catholic Church I have ever read), and Boston culture. Extremely well-written.

I've lived in Massachusetts/Boston my entire life. I regret not reading this book earlier.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4

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