By THIRSTY
Jeremy McCarter became a #1 New York Times bestselling author with Hamilton: The Revolution that he
co-authored with Pulitzer
Prize-winning playwright Lin-Manuel Miranda. His new project, Young Radicals, is the story
of Americans fighting for their ideals in the era of World War I. In addition
to writing books, he has written about culture and politics for New York Magazine, Newsweek, and The New York
Times, and spent five years on the artistic staff of the Public Theater in
New York. He studied history at Harvard and lives in Chicago where Stay Thirsty Magazine caught up with him
for this Conversation.
STAY THIRSTY: In your new book, Young
Radicals, you chronicle the lives and careers of five young American
radical thinkers who came of age around the time of World War I. You tell the
story of their respective journeys as activists, intellectuals and
troublemakers who spoke up for freedom and equality. What drew you to cast Randolph
Bourne, Max Eastman, Walter Lippmann, Alice Paul and John Reed as the leading
figures in your story? Why did you pick these particular people?
JEREMY MCCARTER: I wanted smart, brave, surprising people. I wanted
people who were coming of age around 1912, trying to figure out their place in
the world at the exact moment that the world blew up. I wanted people who
didn’t just theorize, but jumped into the arena to fight for their visions of
progress. I wanted people with a lot of social capital (for example, college
degrees) because it meant they had a lot of reasons NOT to fight. And above all
I wanted them to be good company, since they were going to occupy my brain for
years.
STAY THIRSTY: After spending six years researching and writing Young Radicals, what do you admire the
most and the least about Randolph Bourne?
JEREMY MCCARTER: Most: he’s a fearless genius prophet, the link between
Whitman and Dr. King. Least: he could denounce the Victorian strictures he saw
all around him without being able to rid himself of them.
STAY THIRSTY: About Max Eastman?
JEREMY MCCARTER: Most: his charismatic bravery when his ideals and even
his life were under attack. Least: his
blindness to what was really happening in Soviet Russia, which he only realized
when it was too late.
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| Jeremy McCarter |
STAY THIRSTY: About Walter Lippmann?
JEREMY MCCARTER: Most: his extraordinarily lucid and penetrating
intellect. Least: his knack for departing a losing team just before it lost.
STAY THIRSTY: About Alice Paul?
JEREMY MCCARTER: Most: her mixture of strategic brilliance and
literally death-defying willingness to see that strategy prevail. Least: the way she struck the
(admittedly exceptionally difficult) balance between fighting for the rights of
black women and keeping the support of white supremacists.
STAY THIRSTY: About John Reed?
JEREMY MCCARTER: Most: his instinctive sympathy for the poor, the weak,
the suffering. Least: the way he lost some of his big joyous spirit amid his
devotion to the Bolsheviks.
STAY THIRSTY: Bourne and Reed both died at the age of 32. Eastman
was 86 when he died, Lippmann was 85 and Paul was 92. Did dying young or living
longer have any impact on the longevity or durability of their ideals?
JEREMY MCCARTER: We’d have a different and better country if Bourne and
Reed had lived longer, I’m sure of it. Nobody has taken the place of either of them
on the American left.
STAY THIRSTY: You write about a moment of great promise that your
young radicals seized as the world was about to plunge into World War I. Do you
see any similarities to today’s life and times?
JEREMY MCCARTER: On election night in 2016, as it became clear that our
hopes for the country and our understanding of the world were at least as
faulty as the young radicals’ aspirations had been a century earlier, I emailed
my editor to say that I felt that we were living my book. And that I felt
nauseous.
STAY THIRSTY: Are you personally optimistic or pessimistic about the
next five to ten years?
JEREMY MCCARTER: That doesn’t seem like an either/or choice to me. I’m
optimistic about many things, like the rapid growth of renewable energy. I’m
pessimistic about there being a quick or easy way to recover from this
administration’s assault on the country’s best traditions.
STAY THIRSTY: In your view, does history repeat itself or do the
struggles of earlier times actually change the course of human events?
JEREMY MCCARTER: Those struggles are
the course of human events. We can build on what the young radicals did, or
strike out in a different direction, but the fact of their struggle is part of
our national DNA. One of its best parts, if you ask me.
(Jeremy McCarter photo credit: Kristen Norman)
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