Inside South America.

GUNTHER, John.

$475.00

Item Number: 147581

New York : Harper & Row, Publishers, 1966.

First edition of this eye-opening study of South America, the eighth “Inside” book by John Gunther. Octavo, original publisher’s cloth, illustrated with a black and maps of South America. Association copy, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper, “Warmly to Douglas and Marylee Fairbanks, of the truly valued. John Gunther. NY Jan 67.” From the library of actor Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. with his bookplate to the front pastedown. Douglas Fairbanks Jr. was an actor, producer, and decorated naval officer of World War II. He is best-known for starring in such films as The Prisoner of Zenda (1937), Gunga Din (1939), and The Corsican Brothers (1941). He was the son of Douglas Fairbanks and the stepson of Mary Pickford, and his first marriage was to actress Joan Crawford. Near fine in a very good dust jacket.

John Gunther was a globe-trotting journalist of the mid-1900's who wrote a number of excellent books focusing on politics and life in various parts of the world. He is best known for "Death Be Not Proud", the story of his son, who tragically died of a brain tumor at age 17. Gunther traveled extensively through South America for more than a year, interviewing 722 people from shopkeepers and peasants, to the presidents of the ten nations he surveyed. Determining that country after country is on the edge of revolution, he states that, "nearly the entire continent is in a state of active flux, grasping for a future, with fundamental, yeasty impulses for change apparent almost everywhere."