FIRESIDE, Harvey 1929-

(Harvey F. Fireside)

PERSONAL: Born December 28, 1929, in Vienna, Austria; immigrated to the United States, 1940; son of Norbert (a photographer) and Sidy (Nagel) Fireside; married Bryna Joan Levenberg (a freelance writer), December 12, 1959; children: Leela Ruth, Douglas Leonard, Daniel Ephraim. Education: Harvard University, B.A., 1952, A.M., 1955; Free University of Berlin, exchange fellow, 1953; New School for Social Research, Ph.D., 1968. Politics: Democrat. Religion: Jewish. Hobbies and other interests: Writing poetry.

ADDRESSES: Agent—c/o Author Mail, Carroll and Graf, 245 W. 17th St., 11th Fl. New York, NY 10011-5300. E-mail—brynaj@mindspring.com.

CAREER: Palmerton Publishing Corp., New York, NY, editor, 1959–60; American Cyanamid Co., New York, NY, editor, 1960–61; Foreign Policy Association, Inc., New York, NY, writer and editor, 1961–62; freelance editor, New York, NY, 1962–64; New York Institute of Technology, New York, NY, instructor in social science, 1964–68; Ithaca College, Ithaca, NY, Charles A. Dana Professor of Politics, 1968–96, professor emeritus, 1996–; Cornell Peace Studies Program, visiting fellow, 1996–. Military service: U.S. Army, 1955–57.

MEMBER: International Political Science Association, American Political Science Association, American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, American Association of University Professors (Ithaca College vice president, 1968–70), American Civil Liberties Union (board member of Tompkins County chapter, 1970–), Amnesty International (founder of Ithaca branch, 1974).

AWARDS, HONORS: Carter G. Woodson Award, National Council of Social Studies, 2003, for The "Mississippi Burning" Civil Rights Murder Conspiracy Trial: A Headline Court Case.

WRITINGS:

Icon and Swastika: The Russian Orthodox Church under Nazi and Soviet Control, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA), 1971.

Soviet Psychoprisons, W. W. Norton (New York, NY), 1979.

Separate and Unequal: Homer Plessy and the Supreme Court Decision That Legalized Racism, introduction by Marc H. Morial, Carroll and Graf (New York, NY), 2004.

JUVENILE NONFICTION

(With Sarah Betsy Fuller) Brown v. Board of Education: Equal Schooling for All, Enslow (Hillside, NJ), 1994.

(With wife, Bryna J. Fireside) Young People from Bosnia Talk about War, Enslow (Springfield, NJ), 1996.

Plessy v. Ferguson: Separate But Equal?, Enslow (Springfield, NJ), 1997.

The Fifth Amendment: The Right to Remain Silent, Enslow (Springfield, NJ), 1998.

New York Times v. Sullivan: Affirming Freedom of the Press, Enslow (Springfield, NJ), 1999.

The Nuremberg Nazi War Crimes Trials: A Headline Court Case, Enslow (Berkeley Heights, NJ), 2000.

The "Mississippi Burning" Civil Rights Murder Conspiracy Trial: A Headline Court Case, Enslow (Berkeley Heights, NJ), 2002.

Contributor to Review of Politics, Russian Review, Journal of Modern History, Annals of American Academy of Political and Social Science, Epoch, Nation, New Republic, Commonweal, New Leader, and Problems of Communism.

SIDELIGHTS: Professor emeritus at Ithaca College in New York, Harvey Fireside has written numerous scholarly articles as well as adult and juvenile titles dealing with areas such as Soviet human rights abuses, immigration policy in the United States, and civil rights issues. As he once told CA, he has an "ongoing interest in cultural facets of [the] Soviet political system…. A tour of the USSR in 1974 made me face the bureaucratic callousness of a system that throttles free expression. Since then, writing about dissidents who value their individualism above survival has been a labor of love as well as duty I urge other Western writers to share." Part of the reason for Fireside's concern with human rights issues is the fact that he, as an eleven-year-old, had to flee Nazi persecution in his native Austria. Escaping first to Switzerland, he and his father came to the United States in 1940. Educated at Harvard and the New School for Social Research, Fireside was a professor at schools including Ithaca College for several decades. Upon retirement in 1996, Fireside began a second career as a writer of nonfiction for young adults. For Enslow publishers, he has produced books about Supreme Court cases, the Constitution, refugees, civil rights, and the Nuremberg Trials.

The Nuremberg Nazi War Crimes Trials: A Headline Court Case, attempts, in one small volume, to present an overview of the trial that set the precedent for international war crimes tribunals. Fireside gives a brief overview of World War II and of the decision by the victorious allies that Germans should be tried as war criminals and which crimes should be included in the trial. He also describes the conduct of the trial, with a background note on each of the defendants. Eldon Younce, writing in the School Library Journal, felt this "overly ambitious" project was "only partially successful," but also commented that it would "be best appreciated by readers who already have some knowledge of the subject." Fireside presents another momentous trial in The "Mississippi Burning" Civil Rights Murder Conspiracy Trial: A Headline Court Case, an account of the murders of three civil rights workers in Mississippi in 1964 by Ku Klux Klan members. This case became a turning point in the civil rights movement, enraging and then engaging the rest of the United States in the fight for equality of the races. Fireside covers the major aspects of the case, from the order by the leader of the Ku Klux Klan to eliminate the three, to the police cover-up at the scene, to the dismissal of all charges against those who had perpetrated the crime. He also provides insight into the battle between Southern lawmakers and the federal government. Ajoke' T.I. Kokodoko, writing in the School Library Journal, found this "well researched and documented" account both "straightforward" and "riveting."

Fireside tackles another aspect of the battle against racism in his 2004 title, Separate and Unequal: Homer Plessy and the Supreme Court Decision That Legalized Racism. Homer Plessy was a Louisiana resident, a Creole who was one-eighth African American, and who thus fell under the then current Jim Crow laws of segregation based on the "separate but equal" principle. In 1892, Plessy challenged such laws by buying a first class train ticket and riding in the whites-only area. Arrested when he refused to leave the segregated railroad car, he took his case all the way to the Supreme Court, which, in the 1896 Plessy vs. Ferguson decision, upheld the states' right to determine racial and segregationist matters. According to Thomas J. Davis, writing in the Library Journal, Fireside "exposes … multiple distortions of U.S. history and a persistent betrayal of African Americans' rights." Davis further found the work a "provocative meditation." For a Kirkus Reviews contributor, Separate and Unequal presented "solid work on all fronts, particularly for readers without much background in the life and times of Jim Crow." And Vernon Ford, writing in Booklist, called Fireside's book "an engrossing account of a shameful ruling."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, February 15, 2004, Vernon Ford, review of Separate and Unequal: Homer Plessy and the Supreme Court Decision That Legalized Racism, p. 1026.

Kirkus Reviews, January 1, 2004, review of Separate and Unequal, p. 22.

Library Journal, February 15, 2004, Thomas J. Davis, review of Separate and Unequal, p. 139.

School Library Journal, January, 2001, Eldon Younce, review of The Nuremberg Nazi War Crimes Trials: A Headline Court Case, p. 144; March, 2003, Ajoke' T. I. Kokodoko, review of The "Mississippi Burning" Civil Rights Murder Conspiracy Trial: A Headline Court Case, p. 249.

ONLINE

Bookery, http://www.thebookery.com/ (August 22, 2005), "Harvey Fireside."

Bryna J. Fireside and Harvey Fireside Home Page, http://www.brynajfireside.com (August 21, 2005).

Ithaca College Web site, http://www.ithaca.edu/ (February 16, 1998), "Fireside Retired."

New School University Web site, http://www.newschool.edu/ (August 22, 2005), "Harvey Fireside."