Senator Stevenson’s Black Book: Lessons For The Future From A Rich Political Past

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Chicago, IL – The first Adlai E. Stevenson, Vice President of the U.S., collected stories, jokes and aphorisms in a loose-leaf binder throughout his long career. They were jotted on napkins, cards – anything at hand. If it was worth keeping, it went in the binder which became known as the black book. His son, Lewis Stevenson, Illinois Secretary of State, contributed little, but his son Adlai II, expanded the black book in his career as a lawyer, senior official in the Roosevelt and Truman administrations, Governor of Illinois, Presidential candidate and Ambassador to the UN.

Adlai E. Stevenson III inherited the black book, stuffed with its wit and wisdom, including contributions from friends and supporters around the world as word of the black book spread, and augmented it from his career as a Marine, lawyer, State Representative, State Treasurer, United States Senator, candidate for governor, international investment banker and ever the hereditary global sojourner and public policy activist. The black book was continuously organized and reorganized as a ready source of wit and wisdom for their speeches.

In Adlai Stevenson III’s The Black Book, he records American politics, culture and history as these men knew it. With roots in the gilded age and Illinois they are not unaware of the underside, but they also experienced and sometimes led great bursts of political energy and idealism. Since few, if any, American families have been as actively involved in public office and politics for as long as the Stevensons – beginning in the 1840’s when great great grandfather Jessie Fell was Abraham Lincoln’s sponsor – it is a unique history of lessons from the past covering finance and economics, law and justice, the media, politics, religion, education, war, and so much more. In order to see the future you must see the past, from The Black Book.

Rich in humor, The Black Book aims to help restore American values to American politics for generations largely cut off from a rich past and its lessons. While the lack of civility is a symptom of today’s money-driven politics of ideology, tactics, religiosity and ignorance, the author believes people today yearn for the politics and culture which created America and made it great. A reformer from day one, Stevenson sees an irony in that as our politics were reformed, usually in the name of more democracy, it became less so in respects and less accountable. It lost balance.

Despite the transformation of American politics, Stevenson believes there are courageous men and women prepared to lay down their political lives for their country, and he dedicates The Black Book to them with the hope they gain some “amusement, nourishment and strength from its bits of wisdom.”

Adlai E. Stevenson III has lectured widely, authored numerous articles and is the recipient of many honors, including Japan’s Order of the Sacred Treasure with Gold and Silver Star, and is an Honorary Professor of Renmin University in Beijing. He is Chairman of the Adlai Stevenson Center on Democracy which aims to bring practitioners from the world together to address systemic challenges to democratic systems. A graduate of Harvard College and Law School, he maintains an office in Chicago and a home with his wife, Nancy, on a farm near Galena, Illinois.

For more information on The Black Book or Senator Stevenson, please visit: www.adlai3.com.

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