During his lifetime, US playwright Arthur Miller was affronted in numerous ways by what he experienced, either personally, or vicariously through the experiences of others. For example:

By the way his immigrant family had come to financial grief in the Great Depression (1929 to the late 1930s), through no fault of their own.

By the anti-Semitism that existed in the USA and elsewhere in the 1930s, culminating in the Nazi Holocaust in which so many people of his own ethnic group, the Jews, together with millions of other innocents, perished.

By the way he and others, including many connected with the arts, were persecuted for alleged communist sympathies in the McCarthy ‘witch-hunts’ of the late 1940s and 1950s in the USA.

By the way that atheism, to which he himself subscribed, was considered to be subversive and unpatriotic.

By the way that the ‘American Dream’ was generally portrayed as something to which everybody could aspire: and yet, by embracing the concept of the American Dream, most people were generally setting themselves up to fail.

Despite his disillusionment with life, Miller strove to illuminate a path to a better way and in doing so, offered hope to the inhabitants of the flawed and troubled world in which he found himself, not just in the USA but also elsewhere.

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Foreword
• Chapter 1 The Miller Family: from Austro-Hungary to New York City
• Chapter 2 Childhood and Youth
• Chapter 3 The University of Michigan (1934 to 1938): Early Success: Miller the Idealist
• Chapter 4 The Second World War (1 September 1939 to 2 September 1945): Marriage (1st) to Mary Grace Slattery (5 August 1940)
• Chapter 5 The Man Who Had All the Luck (1944): All My Sons (1947): The Hook (1947)
• Chapter 6 Married Life: Miller as a Father: Miller in Psychoanalysis
• Chapter 7 Ezra Pound and Ernie Pyle
• Chapter 8 Death of a Salesman (1949)
• Chapter 9 Miller’s Uncle Emmanuel (‘Manny’) Newman
• Chapter 10 The Waldorf Conference (25–27 March 1949)
• Chapter 11 The Crucible (1953)
• Chapter 12 The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC)
• Chapter 13 A View from the Bridge (1955)
• Chapter 14 Marriage (2nd) to Marilyn Monroe (29 June 1956): The Vietnam War
• Chapter 15 Miller’s Testimony to the HUAC (21 June 1956)
• Chapter 16 John Steinbeck: a Staunch Ally
• Chapter 17 The Misfits (1961)
• Chapter 18 Miller and Marilyn’s Marriage: the Clouds Gather: Divorce
• Chapter 19 The Death of Marilyn and its Effect on Miller: Ingeborg Morath
• Chapter 20 After the Fall (1964): Incident at Vichy (1964): The Price (1968): The Creation of the World and Other Business (1972)
• Chapter 21 Miller at Home: Humour; Gaiety; Contentment
• Chapter 22 Daniel Miller
• Chapter 23 Miller’s Disillusionment with Marxism/Communism: Religion and the Afterlife
• Chapter 24 Anti-Semitism: The Danger of Religion Wedded to Nationalism
• Chapter 25 Miller: an Abhorrence of Racism
• Chapter 26 1992: The State of the Theatre
• Chapter 27 Miller’s Opinion of US Politicians
• Chapter 28 Some Other Plays and Writings: Mr Peters’ Connections (1998)
• Chapter 29 Finishing the Picture (2004): Later Years
• Chapter 30 Arthur Miller the Playwright
• Chapter 31 Epilogue
• Appendix 1 Arthur Miller: Some Awards and Recognitions
• Appendix 2 Miller as an Activist
• Notes
• Bibliography
• By the Same Author