Links: My Family in American History

"This unflinching portrait of the author's parents tells the story of two sensitive southerners during a time of transition in the South. Spanning three decades, the narrative fuses elements of race relations, family, and intellectual history. Many will be interested in William Link's personal and personalized examination of how a scholar of faith worked within the academic profession. This labor of love is also an extraordinary contribution to historical understanding of a historian's growth, the politics of history departments, and the development of an emergent history profession and its role in higher education.--Orville Vernon Burton, author of The Age of Lincoln "Bill Link's masterful, meticulous, and multi-faceted portrait of his extraordinary parents set their lives within the academic and social communities of Davidson, Chapel Hill, Northwestern, and especially Princeton. In this adept blend of biography and memoir, Link, a distinguished historian in his own right, has as much to say about marriage, parenting, and the bonds of family as he does about the scholarly world through which his father, Arthur Link--one of the giants of 20th century political history--strode for more than half a century."--John C. Inscoe, author of Writing the South through the Self "Combining the objectivity of the historian with the personal insights of a son, Bill Link has written an engaging account of his father, the eminent historian Arthur Link, and his mother, Margaret, a scholar in her own right and who with devotion and kindness raised a family of four children. Along the way we encounter Senators George McGovern and Bill Bradley, students of the elder Link, as well as his dear friend and colleague the iconic historian John Hope Franklin. Anyone interested in the American South, the history profession, the politics of higher education, and the triumphs and tragedies of a notable American family will want to read this book." --Steven F. Lawson, Professor Emeritus, Rutgers University "This frank and touching memoir combines an intimate family story with a sweeping saga of the upheavals that transformed both the post-World War II South and American intellectual life." --Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, University of North Carolina