Research Catalog

Title

Bill W. / Robert Thomsen.

Author

Thomsen, Robert

Publication

New York : Harper & Row, [1975]

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

373 pages; 22 cm

Summary

• The story of Bill Wilson, co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous.
• "The human drama that unfolds in these pages is memorable for two reasons--one public and one private. It is the story of a man whose discovery, or vision, has changed the lives of a million people throughout the world (Aldous Huxley called him "the greatest social architect of our time"). And it is a preeminent example of that hazardous inner quest Carl Jung has mapped and identified as Modern Man in Search of a Soul. In truth, a third factor, however paradoxical, compels our attention. The fellowship of which Bill W. was co-founder is world-wide; its precepts are as potent in India and Japan as in the United States, Australia, and Western Europe. But Bill's own life was an American life, encompassing (1895 to 1971) three-quarters of a century of the national experience, from the living memories of the veterans of Gettysburg, through the euphoric years of industrial expansion, entry into World War I, the boom of the twenties and the Depression of the thirties, right down to the [1960s]. His inner conflict, his battle against the unseen enemy, was fought on a terrain and under combat conditions one hundred percent American. Take his Vermont boyhood at the turn of the century, raised, by a grandfather committed to Jefferson's ideals and Lincoln's dream; marriage to the beautiful and spirited Lois Burnham, before leading men to France to make the world safe for democracy; a wild ride on the Wall Street roller-coaster and growing dependence on alcohol to clarify confusions; collapse that brought him to the verge of death and the luminous instant of insight--or miracle--that saved him; a search leading to the climactic encounter in 1935 with Dr. Bob (fellow-Vermonter and fellow-drunk) and the start of what was to be a new beginning for countless others who despaired of finding rescue or redemption. That the answer should come in the form of a society in which all members are absolute equals, whose spiritual core is guarded by its insistence on anonymity, which cuts through class, condition, color, creed and race, and has survived the inner divisions and external dangers of its early years will seem to the reader incredible and inevitable. It was, in large measure, created by a Yankee pragmatist bred to the belief that all men are equal and that what they have in common is stronger than anything that tries to separate them. Every night at Alcoholics Anonymous meetings around the world, a speaker will say, 'Our stories disclose in a general way what we used to be like, what happened and what we are like now.' In a sense this describes the story of Bill W., a stirring spiritual odyssey through triumph, failure and rebirth, with vital meaning for men and women everywhere."--Jacket.

Subject

• W., Bill
• W., Bill
• Alcoholics Anonymous
• Alcoholics Anonymous
• Alcoholics > United States > Biography
• Alcoholism
• Alcoholism
• alcoholism
• Alcoholics
• United States

Genre/Form

• Biography
• collective biographies.
• Biographies
• Biographies.

ISBN

• 0060142677
• 9780060142674

LCCN

74001861

OCLC

• ocm01465915
• 1465915
• SCSB-203319

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library