Context

 Cara Corder & Harrison Browing

Philip Roth was born on March 19, 1933 in Newark New Jersey as the second child of a Jewish family. After graduating from high school in 1950, Roth started at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, PA, which he graduated from with a degree in English. Roth continued his education at the University of Chicago where he graduated with an M.A. in English Literature. After graduating, Roth served for two years in the United States Army, which served as a source of inspiration for his writing upon his return. Roth published his first book, Goodbye, Columbus, in 1959, which consisted of a novella, a short novel, and five short stories. One year later Roth received the National Book Award for the novel. At the same time, Roth taught creative writing at the University of Iowa and Princeton University. Later he taught at the University of Pennsylvania until 1991, when he retired. Though Roth’s writing covers a variety of issues, his novels usually focus heavily on American ideals, history, and politics. Politics, history, and American ideals all have a role in Roth’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel of 1997, American Pastoral, which is about a Jewish-American’s struggle through the social and political changes of the 1960s. One of Roth’s most critically acclaimed novels, however, is The Plot Against America. The Plot Against America, often referred to as Roth’s masterpiece, is about the struggle of a Jewish boy and his family in 1940s America where antisemitism becomes more accepted. There are many historical figures in this book including Adolf Hitler, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Henry Ford, but Most of all the book is based on if Charles A. Lindbergh were to become president at that time.

What inspired Roth to write this book was reading Arthur Schlesinger Jr's autobiography. In it he mentioned that some of the very radical Republican senators of the day wanted Lindbergh to run against Roosevelt. This book was published in 2004.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_roth

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Plot_Against_America If you're doing this page, you should give us background about the book. Things like when it was written, why it was written, the basic story line, some issues regarding history (big one for this book), info. about the author, etc. You may certainly need to do some research on this stuff, so make sure you link to the website where you're getting the information. If you want, you can check out last year's (it's pretty good) context for the book The Sweet Hereafter.