Herbert Sebastian Agar was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 journalist and an editor of the Louisville Courier-Journal. He won the Pulitzer Prize for History

Pulitzer Prize for History

The Pulitzer Prize for History has been awarded since 1917 for a distinguished book upon the history of the United States. Many history books have also been awarded the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction and Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography...

 in 1934 for his book The People's Choice, a critical look at the American presidency. Agar was associated with the Southern Agrarians

Southern Agrarians

The Southern Agrarians were a group of twelve American writers, poets, essayists, and novelists, all with roots in the Southern United States, who joined together to write a pro-Southern agrarian manifesto, a...

 and edited, with Allen Tate

Allen Tate

John Orley Allen Tate was an American poet, essayist, social commentator, and Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 1943 to 1944.-Life:...

, Who Owns America? (1936). He was also a strong proponent of an Americanized version of the British distributist socioeconomic system.

Agar's book The Price of Union was one of John F. Kennedy

John F. Kennedy

John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....

's favorite books, and he habitually kept a copy of it on his desk. A passage from The Price of Union about an act of courage by John Quincy Adams

John Quincy Adams

John Quincy Adams was the sixth President of the United States . He served as an American diplomat, Senator, and Congressional representative. He was a member of the Federalist, Democratic-Republican, National Republican, and later Anti-Masonic and Whig parties. Adams was the son of former...

 gave Kennedy the idea of writing an article about senatorial courage. He showed the passage to his speechwriter Ted Sorensen

Ted Sorensen

Theodore Chaikin "Ted" Sorensen was an American presidential advisor, lawyer and writer, best known as President John F. Kennedy’s special counsel, adviser and legendary speechwriter. President Kennedy once called him his “intellectual blood bank.”-Early life:Sorensen was born in Nebraska, the son...

 and asked him to see if he could find some more examples. This Sorensen did, and eventually they had enough for a book, the Pulitzer Prize

Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography

The Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography has been presented since 1917 for a distinguished biography or autobiography by an American author.-1910s:* 1917: Julia Ward Howe by Laura E...

-winning Profiles in Courage

Profiles in Courage

Profiles in Courage is a 1955 Pulitzer Prize-winning biography describing acts of bravery and integrity by eight United States Senators throughout the Senate's history. The book profiles senators who crossed party lines and/or defied the public opinion of their constituents to do what they felt was...

.

Quotes

• “The truth which makes men free is for the most part the truth which men prefer not to hear.”
• “Civilization rests on a set of promises; if the promises are broken too often, the civilization dies, no matter how rich it may be, or how mechanically clever. Hope and faith depend on the promises; if hope and faith go, everything goes.”

Works

• Milton and Plato (1928)
• The People's Choice: From Washington to Harding — A Study in Democracy (1933) ISBN 978-0966573404
• Land of the Free (1935)
• Who Owns America? A New Declaration of Independence (contributor, co-editor) (1936) ISBN 978-1882926374
• The Pursuit of Happiness: The Story of American Democracy (1938)
• A Time for Greatness (1942)
• The Price of Union: The Influence of the American Temper on the Course of History (1950)
• Abraham Lincoln (1952)
• The Unquiet Years: USA, 1945-1955 (1957)
• The Price of Power: America Since 1945 (1957) ISBN 978-0226009377
• The Saving Remnant: An Account of Jewish Survival Since 1914 (1960)
• The Perils of Democracy (1968)
• The Darkest Year: Britain Alone, June 1940 - June 1941 (1973)