A Radical Line : From the Labor Movement to the Weather Underground, One Family's Century of Conscience

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Summary: A. Jones
Review: I know so little about American pacifism that I wish the section on Albert Jones was longer but I can't really complain since I really did enjoy this well written and suprisingly honest book.

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Summary: One of the best books I've ever read!
Review: I read "A Radical Line" in a single weekend and it really was as advertised - a crash course in American protest movements. My parents lived through the sixties and they have bored me for years with stories from "back in the day". Reading this book - written by someone in my generation - showed me why that ancient history is still important today - maybe more than ever. The author tells the story through the people in his family, and when he describes the anger his parents felt because of American atrocities in Vietnam, it reminds me of the way I talk to my friends about the war in Iraq.

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Summary: Rubbish
Review: These people were evil, violent and remain unrepentant to the present day. There is nothing to be gained by reading this poorly-written account of their misshapen lives.

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Summary: Making history a family matter
Review: This is a wry, smart book. Jones cleaves historical and personal stories into an astonishing narrative -- one that spans a century of American power and protest. That he does so at all is impressive; that he does so without any navel-gazing self indulgence is a miraculous breath of fresh memoir air. Jones' book is a stark and often critical look at his own family line, as well as a brilliant contextualization of everything from moral outrage and political movements to sex, drugs and car chases.

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Summary: More Relevant Than Ever
Review: When I started reading A Radical Line last month, I thought it was an interesting history of American left-wing movements. But, now that we are stuck with four more years of George W. Bush, I see the book in a whole new light. It is a story of people who weren't afraid to stand up to a government determined to abuse its power. In the 1930s, when workers couldn't find jobs; during the 1950s, when McCarthy was witch-hunting the Communists, in the 1960s, when American generals invaded Vietnam, members of Thai Jones' family risked imprisonment and ostracism to stay true to their politics. Let this book remind us not to give up, but fight on.