In a country where so much of our politics is funded by dark money—funds given by anonymous donors to nonprofits that try to influence elections—it is both refreshing and startling to read about Charles Garland, a young banking heir in the 1920s who used most of his fortune to finance the American Fund for Public Service. What made this fund different from the foundations established by the likes of Rockefeller and Carnegie is that its monies would go to fixing what its directors thought was broken in American capitalism. The A.C.L.U., unions, and the N.A.A.C.P., among others, all benefited from the fund’s seed money, and its legacy stretched from helping to finance Clarence Darrow’s defense in the Scopes evolution trial in 1925 to victory in the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954.
The fund closed in 1941, after giving away nearly $2 million, but as John Fabian Witt so eloquently details, it was the strategic deployment of those dollars that proved so influential in remaking American progressivism. This is historical narrative at its best: deeply reported, illuminating, and wonderfully told.
with David Feinberg
God forbid you are thinking about a divorce, but if you are, call Harriet Cohen before your spouse does. For decades, Cohen has repped dozens of high-profile (Andrew Cuomo, former wives of Harvey Weinstein and Howard Stern) and low-profile (intentionally so) clients as they navigate the worst moment of their lives. Discretion is one reason she is in demand, but as this eminently readable memoir proves, she is uncommonly wise and empathetic. Come for stories about what can constitute a favorable outcome in a settlement (her client and the opposing lawyer’s client are both unhappy) and her successful battles for divorce reform over the decades, and stay for the personal details of a life well lived and well loved.
We have a weakness both for exotic travel books and endangered animals, so imagine our pleasure in reading Jonathan C. Slaght’s first book, Owls of the Eastern Ice, which chronicled his five-year study of Blakiston’s fish owls, which make their home in the forests of Russia’s Far East. Now he is back with a tale just as thrilling, about the Amur tiger, which saw its numbers in Northeast Asia dwindle in the final years of the first Cold War. This is a story as much about the scientists behind the Siberian Tiger Project as it is about the tigers themselves, and Slaght has a marvelous gift for putting the reader right inside the expeditions to capture, radio-collar, and release the tigers for study. He artfully salts in the region’s history and the fate of other tiger species, but the book is largely an enthralling and, yes, inspiring story of a decades-long collaboration to ensure the survival of the Amur tiger, population 450 at last count.
Jim Kelly is the Books Editor at AIR MAIl. He can be reached at jkelly@airmail.news