The Cry for Justice

by Upton Sinclair (editor), Edward Sagarin (Editor), Albert Teichner (Editor)

Contained in this volume are many of the most stirring, thought-provoking and incisive writings on the struggle of humanity against social injustice ever written. Contributors include Upton Sinclair, Jack London, Euripides, Dante, Zola, and Tolstoy as well as contemporary authors such as Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela, Yevgeny Yevtushenko, and Mahatma Gandhi.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, Social Justice, History, Poetry

656 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1915

About the author

Upton 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.

Reviews

[Barb · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found a copy of the 1921 edition at Jackson Street Books in Athens, GA. Somewhat fragile, but still in excellent readable condition. Since the edition I'm reading isn't listed on Goodreads, I've chosen this one to list. This anthology is also available in ebook format. I suspect I'll be browsing through this for some time to come.

[Laine]

So far I am enjoying this book. The one reason I got this is becuase of Upton Sinclair.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

An updated 2nd edition of Upton Sinclair's anthology "The Cry For Justice," this volume contains writings by some of the most important progressive thinkers throughout history. Including Aristotle, Dante, Gandhi, Albert Camus, James Baldwin, Frederick Douglass, Albert Einstein, Karl Marx, Mark Twain and many many others.

[Daniel Palevski · Rating 4 out of 5]

A massive collection of great thoughts and writings from many falling under the umbrella of the larger them of social justice, with twenty sub-themes broken down in the book.