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Boston
Das große US-Epos um Klassenjustiz und staatliche Willkür jetzt in deutscher Neuübersetzung
Vom Tellerwäscher zum Märtyrer – die Namen Sacco und Vanzetti stehen für den Wirklichkeit gewordenen amerikanischen Alptraum. Ihr Schicksal erschütterte Millionen Menschen weltweit in ihrem Glauben an Recht und Ordnung. Upton Sinclair, engagierter Romancier und Gesellschaftskritiker, inszenierte die realen Geschehnisse der Zwanzigerjahre als fesselndes literarisches Epochendrama.
Glamour, Jazz und endlose Partys: Das waren die Roaring Twenties. Allerdings ist das nur die halbe Wahrheit – Upton Sinclair zeigt uns die ganze. Denn während die Happy Few feierten, wurden die Massen mittels brutaler Klassenjustiz niedergehalten. Am Beispiel der einflussreichen Ostküsten-Sippe Thornwell zeigt «Boston», wie das System staatlich sanktionierter Korruption funktionierte. Als Kulminationspunkt dient der Schauprozess gegen die zwei bekanntesten Justizopfer der amerikanischen Geschichte, Nicola Sacco und Bartolomeo Vanzetti, die 1927 wegen Mordes hingerichtet wurden. In diesem ergreifenden Buch geht es um die moralische Glaubwürdigkeit offizieller Repräsentanten und Institutionen, um Menschenliebe und Bürgerpflicht, um Gerechtigkeit und den Mut zur Wahrheit.
Vom Tellerwäscher zum Märtyrer – die Namen Sacco und Vanzetti stehen für den Wirklichkeit gewordenen amerikanischen Alptraum. Ihr Schicksal erschütterte Millionen Menschen weltweit in ihrem Glauben an Recht und Ordnung. Upton Sinclair, engagierter Romancier und Gesellschaftskritiker, inszenierte die realen Geschehnisse der Zwanzigerjahre als fesselndes literarisches Epochendrama.
Glamour, Jazz und endlose Partys: Das waren die Roaring Twenties. Allerdings ist das nur die halbe Wahrheit – Upton Sinclair zeigt uns die ganze. Denn während die Happy Few feierten, wurden die Massen mittels brutaler Klassenjustiz niedergehalten. Am Beispiel der einflussreichen Ostküsten-Sippe Thornwell zeigt «Boston», wie das System staatlich sanktionierter Korruption funktionierte. Als Kulminationspunkt dient der Schauprozess gegen die zwei bekanntesten Justizopfer der amerikanischen Geschichte, Nicola Sacco und Bartolomeo Vanzetti, die 1927 wegen Mordes hingerichtet wurden. In diesem ergreifenden Buch geht es um die moralische Glaubwürdigkeit offizieller Repräsentanten und Institutionen, um Menschenliebe und Bürgerpflicht, um Gerechtigkeit und den Mut zur Wahrheit.
1056 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1928
84 people are currently reading
513 people want to read
About the author
Upton Sinclair
714 books1,183 followersUpton Beall Sinclair, Jr. was an American author who wrote close to one hundred books in many genres. He achieved popularity in the first half of the twentieth century, acquiring particular fame for his classic muckraking novel, The Jungle (1906). To gather information for the novel, Sinclair spent seven weeks undercover working in the meat packing plants of Chicago. These direct experiences exposed the horrific conditions in the U.S. meat packing industry, causing a public uproar that contributed in part to the passage a few months later of the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act. The Jungle has remained continuously in print since its initial publication. In 1919, he published The Brass Check, a muckraking exposé of American journalism that publicized the issue of yellow journalism and the limitations of the “free press” in the United States. Four years after the initial publication of The Brass Check, the first code of ethics for journalists was created. Time magazine called him "a man with every gift except humor and silence." In 1943, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
Sinclair also ran unsuccessfully for Congress as a Socialist, and was the Democratic Party nominee for Governor of California in 1934, though his highly progressive campaign was defeated.
Sinclair also ran unsuccessfully for Congress as a Socialist, and was the Democratic Party nominee for Governor of California in 1934, though his highly progressive campaign was defeated.
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
October 29, 2017
Sieben Jahre und sieben Minuten mussten zwei Arbeiterherzen bluten. Sieben Minuten und sieben Jahre - Diesen Schwur an ihrer Bahre: Alle für zwei. Ihr starbt nicht allein. Es soll ihnen nichts vergessen sein. (Theobald Tiger alias Kurt Tucholsky, 1927)
Sacco und Vanzetti, wer kennt sie nicht? Die beiden italienischen Einwanderer, die in einem fragwürdigen Prozess zum Tode verurteilt und nach siebenjähriger Haft 1927 in Charlestown, Massachusetts hingerichtet wurden? Ihnen setzt Upton Sinclair in seinem halbdokumentarischen Roman „Boston“, bei Manesse nun in der Neuübersetzung von Viola Siegemund erschienen, ein literarisches Denkmal.
Der Autor, Sozialist und als „mudraker“ verschrien, gibt mit seinen Werken denen eine Stimme, die ansonsten nicht gehört werden. Wie die beiden italienischen Einwanderer Nicola Sacco und Bartolomeo Vanzetti, die dem „Vom Tellerwäscher zum Millionär Mythos“ folgen und 1908 nach Amerika kommen, um ihr Glück zu machen, doch bald darauf feststellen müssen, dass Wunsch und Wirklichkeit mit der Realität nichts zu tun haben. Einwanderer werden diskriminiert, politisch Andersdenkende verfolgt. Desillusioniert schließen sie sich der anarchistischen Arbeiterbewegung an, die der Ostküsten-Plutokratie ein Dorn im Auge ist und die nur auf die Gelegenheit wartet, einem der Aktivisten etwas anhängen und ein Exempel statuieren zu können. 1920 werden Sacco und Vanzetti verhaftet, man wirft ihnen Raubmord vor. Zeugen werden gekauft, Experten manipuliert, und 1921 werden die beiden nach einem fragwürdigen Prozess schuldig gesprochen.
Eine Welle der Solidaritätsbekundungen schwappt über den großen Teich und auch Upton Sinclair ist nahe an dem Geschehen dran. Er recherchiert akribisch genau, liest die Protokolle, interviewt die Verteidiger und besucht Vanzetti im Gefängnis. Alles vergebens, weil nicht sein kann, was nicht sein darf. Alle Revisionsanträge der kommenden 6 Jahre laufen ins Leere, und so folgt am 23. August 1927 der Vollzug des Todesurteils durch den elektrischen Stuhl.
1928 erscheint Sinclairs Roman „Boston, a Contemporary Historical Novel”, in dem er die Fakten mit Fiktion verarbeitet und ein exaktes Bild, so ist zu vermuten, der amerikanischen Klassengesellschaft der „Roaring Twenties“ wiedergibt.
Upton Sinclair (1878 – 1968), ein Autor, der kein Blatt vor den Mund genommen hat, ein Kämpfer gegen Unrecht und für die Unterprivilegierten. In seinen Romanen ging es ihm immer darum, soziale Missstände nicht nur bewusst zu machen sondern auch anzuprangern. Heute so aktuell wie damals, denn würde er 2017 einen Blick auf die Welt werfen, fände er wahrlich genügend Stoff für Dutzende neue Romane.
Eine Bemerkung zum Schluss: Anlässlich des fünfzigsten Jahrestages der Hinrichtung rehabilitierte Michael Dukakis, Demokrat und Gouverneur von Massachusetts, Sacco und Vanzetti und gab eine Ehrenerklärung für die beiden ab – was ihnen nur leider nichts mehr genutzt hat.
Nachdrückliche Leseempfehlung!
Sacco und Vanzetti, wer kennt sie nicht? Die beiden italienischen Einwanderer, die in einem fragwürdigen Prozess zum Tode verurteilt und nach siebenjähriger Haft 1927 in Charlestown, Massachusetts hingerichtet wurden? Ihnen setzt Upton Sinclair in seinem halbdokumentarischen Roman „Boston“, bei Manesse nun in der Neuübersetzung von Viola Siegemund erschienen, ein literarisches Denkmal.
Der Autor, Sozialist und als „mudraker“ verschrien, gibt mit seinen Werken denen eine Stimme, die ansonsten nicht gehört werden. Wie die beiden italienischen Einwanderer Nicola Sacco und Bartolomeo Vanzetti, die dem „Vom Tellerwäscher zum Millionär Mythos“ folgen und 1908 nach Amerika kommen, um ihr Glück zu machen, doch bald darauf feststellen müssen, dass Wunsch und Wirklichkeit mit der Realität nichts zu tun haben. Einwanderer werden diskriminiert, politisch Andersdenkende verfolgt. Desillusioniert schließen sie sich der anarchistischen Arbeiterbewegung an, die der Ostküsten-Plutokratie ein Dorn im Auge ist und die nur auf die Gelegenheit wartet, einem der Aktivisten etwas anhängen und ein Exempel statuieren zu können. 1920 werden Sacco und Vanzetti verhaftet, man wirft ihnen Raubmord vor. Zeugen werden gekauft, Experten manipuliert, und 1921 werden die beiden nach einem fragwürdigen Prozess schuldig gesprochen.
Eine Welle der Solidaritätsbekundungen schwappt über den großen Teich und auch Upton Sinclair ist nahe an dem Geschehen dran. Er recherchiert akribisch genau, liest die Protokolle, interviewt die Verteidiger und besucht Vanzetti im Gefängnis. Alles vergebens, weil nicht sein kann, was nicht sein darf. Alle Revisionsanträge der kommenden 6 Jahre laufen ins Leere, und so folgt am 23. August 1927 der Vollzug des Todesurteils durch den elektrischen Stuhl.
1928 erscheint Sinclairs Roman „Boston, a Contemporary Historical Novel”, in dem er die Fakten mit Fiktion verarbeitet und ein exaktes Bild, so ist zu vermuten, der amerikanischen Klassengesellschaft der „Roaring Twenties“ wiedergibt.
Upton Sinclair (1878 – 1968), ein Autor, der kein Blatt vor den Mund genommen hat, ein Kämpfer gegen Unrecht und für die Unterprivilegierten. In seinen Romanen ging es ihm immer darum, soziale Missstände nicht nur bewusst zu machen sondern auch anzuprangern. Heute so aktuell wie damals, denn würde er 2017 einen Blick auf die Welt werfen, fände er wahrlich genügend Stoff für Dutzende neue Romane.
Eine Bemerkung zum Schluss: Anlässlich des fünfzigsten Jahrestages der Hinrichtung rehabilitierte Michael Dukakis, Demokrat und Gouverneur von Massachusetts, Sacco und Vanzetti und gab eine Ehrenerklärung für die beiden ab – was ihnen nur leider nichts mehr genutzt hat.
Nachdrückliche Leseempfehlung!
October 27, 2009
The book I am reviewing is titled Boston. Goodreads list it as Boston: A documentary novel of the Sacco Vanzetti case. I’m afraid that this addition to the title makes the book sound less appealing.
Boston is an historical novel set in the time period 1917- 1927. It is a story of individuals, families, a city and, ultimately the nation and a world, struggling with the issues of the day- war, immigration, the suffragist movement, socialism, communism, class division, capital punishment, poverty, corruption and greed. It is difficult to determine if the book is more history or more fiction. Nevertheless, I thought it was a very good book. The two main characters are Cornelia, a grandmother and her friend Bart. I would love to have either as a friend. It would be great to have a grandmother like Corneila. She is compassionate, determined, energetic, tough and lovable. Bart is a man of integrity, bright, devoted and also a lovable character. Upton Sinclair does a great job with all the characters and made me feel a part of the family, the city and the issues of the day. I was repeatedly amazed by the similarity of the issues we face today and those described in the book. Perhaps it is true that the more things change the more they stay the same. I recommend the book and give it 4 ½ stars.
Boston is an historical novel set in the time period 1917- 1927. It is a story of individuals, families, a city and, ultimately the nation and a world, struggling with the issues of the day- war, immigration, the suffragist movement, socialism, communism, class division, capital punishment, poverty, corruption and greed. It is difficult to determine if the book is more history or more fiction. Nevertheless, I thought it was a very good book. The two main characters are Cornelia, a grandmother and her friend Bart. I would love to have either as a friend. It would be great to have a grandmother like Corneila. She is compassionate, determined, energetic, tough and lovable. Bart is a man of integrity, bright, devoted and also a lovable character. Upton Sinclair does a great job with all the characters and made me feel a part of the family, the city and the issues of the day. I was repeatedly amazed by the similarity of the issues we face today and those described in the book. Perhaps it is true that the more things change the more they stay the same. I recommend the book and give it 4 ½ stars.
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June 25, 2025Bitte vergebt mir, ich hab diesen Wälzer nach 500 Seiten abgebrochen und trotzdem als gelesen markiert.
Eigentlich ein schönes Buch, aber ich hab’s nicht geschafft durchzuentspannen. Man kriegt dann ja oft so einen Rappel was Neues anzufangen und ich habe mich dem Rappel einmal zu oft gebeugt.
Kann ich aber auch nur den Leuten empfehlen, die dich für Anarchismus in New England um 1900 interessieren. Und selbst dabei kann es besser sein einfach ein Sachbuch oder die Briefe von Sacco & Vanzetti.
Ich liebe die Briefe vor allem wegen diesem Woody Guthrie Song!
Eigentlich ein schönes Buch, aber ich hab’s nicht geschafft durchzuentspannen. Man kriegt dann ja oft so einen Rappel was Neues anzufangen und ich habe mich dem Rappel einmal zu oft gebeugt.
Kann ich aber auch nur den Leuten empfehlen, die dich für Anarchismus in New England um 1900 interessieren. Und selbst dabei kann es besser sein einfach ein Sachbuch oder die Briefe von Sacco & Vanzetti.
Ich liebe die Briefe vor allem wegen diesem Woody Guthrie Song!
March 25, 2019
The story is intriguing. Of course it is. But there were two features of the novel that ultimately grated on me so much that I had to give it up. First, it's very one-sided. I am a lefty, but a hagiography of men who belong to a group of bomb-throwing anarchists goes way too far for me. Second, the language was often distracting. In particular, Sinclair's attempts to capture the speech of non-Americans borders on unintentional parody.
May 7, 2012
Almost impossible to believe that this book isn't more talked about as once again (still) wealth is in the hands of the 10 percent who also control industry,law and government as was the case in the time of Sacco and Vanzetti.Also explains quite a bit of the Irish/Italian antipathy.But not as well formed as his other novels in part,I believe, because of the rush to get this into print
February 12, 2024
This is the story of a man who stood up to the propaganda of the American machinery for counterrevolutionary terror, at a time prior to its becoming sedimented in the left-right dichotomy which currently splits this country into liberals and conservatives - and just look at where it got him! He was railroaded by the justice system into pleading nolo contendere to a lackluster frame-up job, mistakenly attributed to a half-witted and, politically-speaking, child-like mind. What was purportedly a $3,000 robbery in Bridgewater Mass. was attributed to Bartolomeo Vanzetti, who so feared becoming a soldier in World War One that he hid out in Mexico instead, mistakenly believing that he, an Italian citizen living in America, could be conscripted into Uncle Sam's army. Hoo-boy! It turns out his life-story is in fact my story, too, as he and Cornelia, the runaway grandma, ambled along the sodden streets in North Plymouth, making their way from up Castle Hill down to the waterfront properties where the Cordage rope company is located, they armed themselves with the revolutionary tracts that would entice their fellow workers to strike against their employer for better wages and an improvement in their living conditions. Reading this book, I was shocked at the synchronicity, as that's the exact place where I went with mother last Tuesday when, to our surprise, we discovered that the Atrius lab had been moved to 36 Shops and Five Way. It turns out that Sinclair's story of the American government in the early 20th century, which supported White (counterrevolutionary) regimes that frequently turned into dictatorships, is a story that refuses to disappear. Whereas after the Watergate scandal of the early 1970s, a general distinction was made in political consciousness between anarchy as a system of revolutionary principles and the anarchist as a destructive fire-breathing revolutionary, it appears that the entrance of artificially intelligent machines observes no such propositional limit-clause. In fact, the collective systems of A.I. technology promises to colonize the people of the fourth estate and that is something which, in my opinion, bodes ill for humanity as a whole in the sense that it may bring about the very reversal of the principles of self-determination which have guided the American experience. Three stars.
October 5, 2018
In World War One-era Boston the Yankee blue-blood families who ruled the roost had barely accommodated themselves to the idea that they would have to make room for the Irish Catholics. Now it was Italian, Slav and Jewish immigrants who occupied the bottom of the ladder, and some of them were even dirty Reds!
Cornelia Thornwell, elderly widow of a one-time governor of Massachusetts, whose sons-in-law are all millionaire bankers, industrialists and lawyers, flees her family and ends up working in a factory with Bartolomeo Vanzetti. She sees him in action during a dramatic strike and is fascinated by his saint-like qualities. They become fast friends and although Cornelia is somewhat fictional this long, detailed novel is essentially an accurate history of the Sacco-Vanzetti case, written after Sinclair did extensive research while the events were still very fresh (even ongoing). In his book Paul Avrich essentially calls this the best Sacco-Vanzetti history around. It's brilliantly written and the side-plots are just as interesting as the tale of martyrdom. Although it's very long (my edition was two volumes) and drags a bit in parts of the trial, most of it is great.
An extremely sharp account of a major episode in the class war.
Cornelia Thornwell, elderly widow of a one-time governor of Massachusetts, whose sons-in-law are all millionaire bankers, industrialists and lawyers, flees her family and ends up working in a factory with Bartolomeo Vanzetti. She sees him in action during a dramatic strike and is fascinated by his saint-like qualities. They become fast friends and although Cornelia is somewhat fictional this long, detailed novel is essentially an accurate history of the Sacco-Vanzetti case, written after Sinclair did extensive research while the events were still very fresh (even ongoing). In his book Paul Avrich essentially calls this the best Sacco-Vanzetti history around. It's brilliantly written and the side-plots are just as interesting as the tale of martyrdom. Although it's very long (my edition was two volumes) and drags a bit in parts of the trial, most of it is great.
An extremely sharp account of a major episode in the class war.
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July 3, 2022“Boston: A Documentary Novel” is Upton Sinclair’s account of the infamous Sacco and Vanzetti case, clocking in at more than 800 pages if you continue through the appendices, which I did. Calling it a documentary novel is Sinclair’s way of signaling that it’s a mixture of fact and fiction, with invented characters and situations alongside real characters and situations, which were very fresh when the book appeared in 1928, only a year after the two died in the electric chair. Interested parties still debate various aspects of the hugely controversial case, but Sinclair carves his belief in both men’s total innocence into pretty much every page, and while his argument is the opposite of subtle, it seems incontestable that they received a wildly unfair trial and were denied a second one despite overwhelming evidence of malfeasance in the plutocratically controlled Massachusetts court system. As usual, Sinclair’s prose style is also the opposite of subtle, full of repetition and bedecked with more exclamation points than you’d want to count. He provides quite an immersion in the subject at hand, though, and I found it an exasperating but worthwhile read. Recommended for anyone with the requisite stamina.
March 15, 2024
I’ve read ‘Oil!’ by Upton Sinclair and was excited to get my hands on ‘Boston.’
YIKES!
It’s 800pp with extra pages about the exoneration of Sacco & Vanzetti. If I remember correctly, ‘War and Peace’ WITH military maneuvers was 800pp. As interesting background story of heiress Cornelia Thornwell was, Vanzetti’s idiom was tough to read. I’m sure Mr. Sinclair wrote the dialects with absolute accuracy but it was still a struggle to get through. It wasn’t just Italian but to show the many immigrants of Boston there were Irish, Portuguese and others.
I made it to page 225.
Like ‘Oil’, the story is about the haves and have-nots and the clash between them. Caught in the clash is 60yo Cornelia Thornwell and her granddaughter Betty amidst the political whirl of anarchists, socialists, and communists.
YIKES!
It’s 800pp with extra pages about the exoneration of Sacco & Vanzetti. If I remember correctly, ‘War and Peace’ WITH military maneuvers was 800pp. As interesting background story of heiress Cornelia Thornwell was, Vanzetti’s idiom was tough to read. I’m sure Mr. Sinclair wrote the dialects with absolute accuracy but it was still a struggle to get through. It wasn’t just Italian but to show the many immigrants of Boston there were Irish, Portuguese and others.
I made it to page 225.
Like ‘Oil’, the story is about the haves and have-nots and the clash between them. Caught in the clash is 60yo Cornelia Thornwell and her granddaughter Betty amidst the political whirl of anarchists, socialists, and communists.
June 19, 2017
I really enjoyed reading this book. We used timbers in our new house from the Plymouth Cordage Company which is prominently featured in the first part of this book, which is why I read the book in the first place. There are so many issues in Boston which are still issues today, just in different aspects of society. The 99% vs the 1%, race and social class issues although in the book it is Italian vs. blue blood Puritan Boston, judicial fairness, the influence of the rich on politics, etc. I highly recommend it.
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September 14, 2021Growing up in a suburb of Boston I had heard of Sacco and Vanzetti but never knew why they were famous. Thoroughly enjoyed this book and learned of these 2 Italian immigrants lives and the horrible treatment they received from our judicial system. The corruption of the police department and the "good ole boys club" of politicians and banking bigwigs along with the social hierarchy of Boston's "blue bloods" is nothing new as it all existed in the 1930's and probably earlier than that. The treatment of immigrants is also as shameful as what is going on in the 2000's.
May 1, 2023
This has been called one of Sinclair's top novels (with The Jungle and Oil! being the other two) and it did not disappoint. This novel revolves around the case of Sacco and Vanzetti, and uses an interesting plot device of an upper-crust Bostonian, Cornelia Thornwell, who befriends Vanzetti and is a link between the Italian revolutionary and Boston's elite.
There is real tenderness in this novel as well as great insight throughout. It's a shame that this book isn't more popular in the history of American literature, likely due to its respectful and tender attitude to Sacco and Vanzetti.
There is real tenderness in this novel as well as great insight throughout. It's a shame that this book isn't more popular in the history of American literature, likely due to its respectful and tender attitude to Sacco and Vanzetti.
June 10, 2018
Book club with Jessica. I was called in for jury duty at the Dedham courthouse where the trial took place, so many of those scenes felt especially vivid.
From Howard Zinn's introduction:
"It is not the kind of history that can be handled comfortably, in harmless ceremonies, like the Bicentennial celebrations of 1976, in which the revolutionary doctrines of the Declaration of Independence were lost in a Disneyland of pageantry. Sacco and Vanzetti were not Washington and Jefferson, not wealthy insurgents making a half-revolution to exchange a limited monarchy for a limited democracy."
From Howard Zinn's introduction:
"It is not the kind of history that can be handled comfortably, in harmless ceremonies, like the Bicentennial celebrations of 1976, in which the revolutionary doctrines of the Declaration of Independence were lost in a Disneyland of pageantry. Sacco and Vanzetti were not Washington and Jefferson, not wealthy insurgents making a half-revolution to exchange a limited monarchy for a limited democracy."
April 28, 2021
Overly long and didactic. This book could have used a good editor. The author clearly did a tremendous amount of research. Perhaps he'd have produced a more satisfying work if he'd elected to write non-fiction.
Sinclair opted to write Vanzetti's dialogue in Italian flavored English, with attendant phonetic spellings. It was excruciating to read, and, I suspect, positively cringe-worthy for Italian readers.
Sinclair opted to write Vanzetti's dialogue in Italian flavored English, with attendant phonetic spellings. It was excruciating to read, and, I suspect, positively cringe-worthy for Italian readers.
May 16, 2021
lazy reread and it was worse than I remembered
October 15, 2016
Incredible story telling by one of the most talented American writers in history or anywhere. Boston is about the blue blooded wife of the former Governor of Massachusetts Cornelia Thornwell and how she gets involved in the case of Sacco v. The Commonwealth in which Sacco and Vanzetti 2 Italian immigrant anarchists are convicted of a robbery murder they did not commit and are sentenced to death in electric chair. It's a true story. An instance of the court being used to protect the ruling class rather than for justice. Boston is full of juxtapositions, for example, the feelings of Cornelia, who is the widow of Governor Thornwell, juxtaposed to Governor Alvin T. Fuller, a car super-salesman who refuses to pardon the 2 defendants despite plenty of evidence and motions that should have exonerated the defendants and proven their innocence. The novel shows the xenophobia of the time, and the aggression against anything perceived as a threat to the ruling class, property owners, or capitalism- for example the Reds (Communists/Bolsheviks.) Boston is over 700 pages and it was written in one year- published in 1928-a year after Sacco and Vanzetti were executed in Boston.
-AB
-AB
February 27, 2013
A meld of fact and fiction... in 1920's MA, leaving the reader questioning the US justice system. Sacco and Vanzetti were anarchists (how dare they!) and Italian immigrants (so unpatriotic, dodging the WWI draft, even though they weren't citizens!), so the deck was stacked against them from the start. Even with a confession from a 3rd party, these two men were still found guilty of murder and robbery and put to death. The book captures the social and cultural atmosphere of the time, as well as the inequality between the upper and lower classes, misinformation, prejudice and paranoia. The same themes can be applied to the way countless others have been treated in the US and will probably continue to be treated as we weave through time... the Japanese, Gays, Muslims... I definitely liked the book and recommend it, but there are times where the story gets a little long-winded or jumps around and there are so many witnesses and characters one finds it hard to remember all of them.
May 12, 2012
Almost impossible to believe that this book isn't more talked about as once again (still) wealth is in the hands of the 10 percent who also control industry,law and government as was the case in the time of Sacco and Vanzetti.Also explains quite a bit of the Irish/Italian antipathy.But not as well formed as his other novels in part,I believe, because of the rush to get this into print
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February 5, 2016
I was new to the country when I read it, in Boston, and it was quite something to read an intimate history of the society and the lapses from justice that happened not due to legal and justice systems overlooking a crucial part, but because the ones that got a poor deal were poor immigrants early last century.
November 16, 2011
I read this back in the sixties and got pretty fired up. My book was a paperback but not this edition. US's prose is muckraking and indignant. Were either or both guilty... innocent? I guess we'll ever know for sure. Was justice served? Probably not. Date read is a guess.
Currently reading
March 25, 2008I am beging to see Upton Sinclair as a kind of Charles Dickens of America.
July 30, 2010
"The humbler bandits break the law and get punished and the mighty bandits write the law and get off ..."
October 15, 2011
I was really enjoying this book, it's just quite long and I ran out of renewals at the library and then got distracted. *sheepish* I definitely intend on finishing it one day.
Want to read
September 20, 2018Synopsis: a Boston woman becomes involved in the social upheaval generated by the trial of Sacco and Vanzetti of the 1920s.
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews