"For me, growing up in Detroit, Coughlin was a fascinating figure of local lore: both loved and hated, he was clearly someone whose career cannot be reduced to a single dimension. It may well be argued that the conventional standards of biography should not be applied to media figures, for theirs is... a life of fused private and public selves. In the case of Charles Coughlin, to know the real man behind the microphone is certainly beyond the ken of the author. Here lies the particular dilemma of this study: how to discern whether the subject is the mirror of his audience or its manipulator. And this remains the problem regardless of how one feels about his message. Moreover, the temptation to obliterate this duality—inner versus other-directed self—must be set aside. For as a media personality Charles Coughlin was both the creator and the captive of his enthusiastic public." (Preface)
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