Fugitive Days: Memoirs of an Anti-War Activist
by Bill Ayers
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Book Summary Information
Author: Bill AyersEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Published)
Format: Bargain Price
Published: 2008-11-05
ISBN: N/A
Number of pages: 304
Publisher: Beacon Press
Book Reviews of Fugitive Days: Memoirs of an Anti-War Activist
Book Review: Dear Diary: Today I Popped Speed, Bombed a Federal Building, and Went to an Orgy
Summary: 3 Stars
What's one to make of the Weather Underground, the SDS splinter group that blazed briefly in 1969 and 1970? Outraged by the U.S.-instigated bloodbath in Vietnam, the Weathermen tried to DO something to stop it -- and they didn't just sign petitions, vote for feckless anti-war politicians, or lapse into despair. They took direct action against the American power structure -- and often at great risk to themselves. They refused to let their lives make a mockery of their values. As a middle-aged functionary, I salute their memory.
But what they tried to do was crazy. They tried to overthrow the U.S. government. All five or six dozen of them. They tried to "bring the war home to America," as if they were Viet Cong, not white college kids. They convinced themselves they were the vanguard of the American working class. They even thought they could manufacture bombs without blowing themselves up. It was delusional. It was violent. In the end, the Weathermen played into the hands of opportunistic pols like Nixon, who used their tactics to smear the whole anti-war movement.
"Fugitive Days" was written by one of the inner circle, but it doesn't clear up the paradoxes. It is impressionistic, disorganized, and solipsistic. It has too much sexual boasting. Parts gush like a teenager's diary. Even worse, it has no analysis of what motivated the Weathermen, how the group functioned, or how it related to the broader left. There's hardly even a chronology. One example: the Days of Rage is described in florid, first-person detail, but no context is given to explain why anyone could think that a few days of vandalism would end the war in Vietnam.
I liked "Fugitive Days" a lot, because the author loved a girl who died in a blast in New York, and because '60s militancy was an understandable response to the crimes of the Vietnam War. But the book isn't useful as history.
Summary of Fugitive Days: Memoirs of an Anti-War Activist
A gripping memoir of America in the '60s, of idealists turned radicals, and of a life lived on the runIn February 2008, in the heat of the Democratic primary elections, speculations began circulating in the media about a connection between presidential hopeful Barack Obama and Bill Ayers, a former member of the radical 1960s group the Weather Underground. In Fugitive Days, Ayers tells the real story of the defining events of the radical '60s. The book is an eyewitness account of a young pacifist who helped found one of the most radical political organizations in U.S. history, and who consequently lived for ten years as a fugitive. In a new era of antiwar activism and suppression of protest, Fugitive Days is more poignant and relevant than ever.
"For anyone who wants to think hard about the social conflagration the Vietnam War produced in the U.S., and more generally about a citizen's obligations in troubled times, Ayers's powerful, morally charged account of a life and a society in the political balance is provocative reading."
?David Farber, Chicago Tribune
"A memoir that is, in effect, a deeply moving elegy to all those young dreamers who tried to live decently in an indecent world. Ayers provides a tribute to those better angels of ourselves."
?Studs Terkel, author of Working and The Good War
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