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The American Radical
The American Radical tells the story of American democracy from the late 18th century to the present through the lives of the women and men who have fought to advance it.
Paperback
First published January 11, 1994
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
March 30, 2024
I finally finished this book, took me long enough, considering I planned to read this book in like a week back in early February.
This book is a great tool for teachers that want to introduce ideas, movements, and radical figures in American History to students. Even for English teachers, want to teach Walt Whitman, assign the biography as homework as a way to give context to the poet and his poems before digging into his works. I think it was missing some more prominent radical Americans, but there were people in here I had never heard off, and loved learning about them. I want more books like this in my life, and I wouldn't mind a new edition with maybe more people, or different authors biographies of people in the book.
Out of all the biographies in this book I recommend:
Fanny Wright, George Lippard, Walt Whitman, Edward Bellamy, Eugene V. Debs, Upton Sinclair, Emma Goldman, William D. Haywood, W.E.B. Du Bois, Elizabeth Gurley Finn, Arturo Giovannitti, John Reed, Ida B. Wells, Robert M. La Follette, Ricardo Flores Magon (slow paced, but still really interesting), Mother Jones, Dorothy Day, Woody Guthrie, Carlos Bulosan, A. J. Muste, Vito Marcantonio, Paul Robeson, Ella Baker, William Appleman Williams, Malcolm X, MLK, and Audre Lorde. The others are either not that well written, or kind of boring.
This book is a great tool for teachers that want to introduce ideas, movements, and radical figures in American History to students. Even for English teachers, want to teach Walt Whitman, assign the biography as homework as a way to give context to the poet and his poems before digging into his works. I think it was missing some more prominent radical Americans, but there were people in here I had never heard off, and loved learning about them. I want more books like this in my life, and I wouldn't mind a new edition with maybe more people, or different authors biographies of people in the book.
Out of all the biographies in this book I recommend:
Fanny Wright, George Lippard, Walt Whitman, Edward Bellamy, Eugene V. Debs, Upton Sinclair, Emma Goldman, William D. Haywood, W.E.B. Du Bois, Elizabeth Gurley Finn, Arturo Giovannitti, John Reed, Ida B. Wells, Robert M. La Follette, Ricardo Flores Magon (slow paced, but still really interesting), Mother Jones, Dorothy Day, Woody Guthrie, Carlos Bulosan, A. J. Muste, Vito Marcantonio, Paul Robeson, Ella Baker, William Appleman Williams, Malcolm X, MLK, and Audre Lorde. The others are either not that well written, or kind of boring.
Displaying 1 of 1 review