A Sense of Justice: Judge Gilbert S. Merritt and His Times

(Hardback)

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Description

To know the story of the life and times of Judge Gilbert Merritt is to understand modern U.S. politics of the mid to late 20th centuryhow it came to be, and how it workedparticularly in the American South.

Judge Gilbert Merritt and his circle of young lawyers and journalists in Nashville were among the Souths earliest Kennedy Democrats in the late 1950s. Their brash political strivings, though not always victorious at the polls, affected the shape of many things, including the rise of modern Nashville.

As a young legal scholar in his twenties, Merritt was one of the nations youngest U.S. Attorneys (appointed by President Johnson); candidate for Congress; opponent of the death penalty; President Carters nominee for the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit; and almost a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

This social biography is a graduate course in Southern political history, and how that history is much more than campaigns and elections. It depicts a much deeper weave of the power of friendship and loyalty, the influence of history upon individuals and generations, and of how communities of interest formed and evolved over time in our nationand of how it is all connected.

Reviews

Praise for The Family Business:

"Keel Hunt's history of the Ingrams unwinds the past to reveal the family, friends, and business associates who, together, influenced and impacted the book industry (and the arts). Its not just for locals, however, but for anyone interested in how dedication, risk-taking, and innovation can lead to major, long-term change and great success."
Southern Bookseller Review

"Exceptionally well written, impressively comprehensive, meticulously researched, The Family Business: How Ingram Transformed the World of Books is essential reading for authors, publishers, book publicists, book sellers, distributors and wholesalers, as well as anyone in the book business and the world of mediaas well as the bibliophile and non-specialist general reader wanting to understand how this vastly influential publishing industry really works, as well as the ways in which today's electronic information technologies are transforming the world. . . . An essential, core addition to community, college and university library Writing/Publishing collections."
Midwest Book Review

"The Family Business is must reading for any student of book publishingregardless of your role in the industry ecosystem."
Publishing Research Quarterly

"This long-overdue business biography tells the inside story of a great American family-owned business, one that has an impressive 50-year history by any standard."
Independent Publisher

"Hunt, an advisor to the Ingram family since 1995, gives an inside look at the Ingram Content Group, one of the publishing industry's key players, in this comprehensive account. . . Anyone interested in learning about the modern history of book publishing would do well to check this out."
Publishers Weekly

"There's one company responsible for bringing just about every book you've ever read into your life, and you may not even know it exists. In The Family Business, author and journalist Keel Hunt charts the history and contributions of Ingram Content Group, a little-known, family-owned business based in Tennessee that has shaped the publishing world for 50 years."
BookPage

"The Family Business is a somewhat timeless story of the twists and turns in one business' life, and the lessons that can be learned from it."
Clear Purpose

"Meticulously documented. . . It is a great story, a great education in the book business, and a book everyone in the business of books should own."
Porchlight Books

Author Bio

Keel Hunt is the author of The Family Business as well as two books on Tennessee political history, and has been a columnist for the USA Today Tennessee network since 2013. In his early career, he was a journalist and Washington correspondent. He lives in Nashville, Tennessee.