Rating: 
Summary: Let's you be there now!
Review: My Ayers book is an excellent memoir of the times.He captuers the flavor of SDS and the Weatherman exactly as it was for those of us who lived it. There is little in the way of analysis and apologizes here, and that is as it should be. This book does not attempt place the past in the context of today. It is a memoir and as such has no need to do that.If you want to want to experience the feelings just as they were in those days then this is the best book to date on the subject. It move at the same pace as the events did or at least felt like they were moving at the time.
Rating: 
Summary: Ayers Reality
Review: "Ayers ends his book without even acknowledging that after the group broke up, several of its most important cadre - including the former lower level leader Kathy Boudin - ended up joining in terrorist actions in support of the ultra violent so-called Black Liberation Army. Boudin ended up in prison for life for her role in the 1981 Brinks robbery and murder, in which her comrades killed a black cop. The Weather Underground broke apart in a 1930s-style Communist purge, as old hard-line Stalinists Ayers and Dohrn had recruited took the group over, purging many for various deviations. Indeed, Dohrn and Ayers themselves were put on trial for promoting "crimes against national liberation struggles, women and the anti-imperialist left." Like the old Stalinists, they readily confessed to their crimes before the new Central Committee, of which Dohrn had taken Stalin's title as General Secretary. Many of them then joined the new May 19th Communist organization, which became a support group for the terrorist Black Liberation Army, the group which pulled off the Brinks robbery and murder with Boudin and Gilbert's participation. With these two in prison for life, Ayers and Dohrn agreed to raise Boudin and Gilbert's child as their own. Yet the actions of Boudin and Gilbert, who followed through on the logic and policy of Ayers' beloved Weathermen, are somehow not discussed. After all, Ayers admits that he sent support messages to the BLA, and let them know they "agreed" with them. Does not this make himself and Dohrn also responsible for their acts of murder?"
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Summary: Thouhts of a left wing weasel.
Review: Bill Ayers is a despicable human being and murderer. The fact that he is still a free man demonstrates the degree to which the "Hate America" left operates within this country. Please DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY ON THE SELF SERVING MUSINGS OF A TERRORIST. I'm sure he was delighted with the events of 9/11. Probably wishes he'd been involved.
Rating:
Summary: A Huge Disappointment
Review: I found the writing self-righteous and sensationalistic. Really a disappointing waste of time. I thought I'd find something worth gleening by reading his experience...but in the light of what has happened in the US of late, I found this book distastful. I bought this book at my local bookstore and am returning it post haste!!! Don't waste your money!
Rating:
Summary: A first cousin of bin Laden
Review: Ayers is a self-described terrorist who carefully avoids the use of that word in his puerile memoirs. But make no mistake- he is closely related to bin Laden and all other terrorists in history who use violence to advance political positions. While he may bristle at the use of the terrorist label now, Ayers is proud of his use of bombs and violence in the book.
It would be a shame to give this terrorist money through royalties from sales of this piece of garbage and self-justifying trash.
Rating: 
Summary: The views of a historian.
Review: Since its release, the arguments surrounding this book have been exhaustive. What none of these critics seems to be able to see is that this is a book of one man's life. This memoir, like all memoirs, outlines the major events of the author's life, and how those events led and transformed his life. Fortunately for us, Bill Ayers has chosen to share his experiences with us. Never in the course of the book does the author judge what he did, he merely explains why he thought such doings were a good idea at the time. To a historian such an account is invaluable. Here is a man who for much of his life lived outside of mainstream American society, fighting against what he perceived to be its inflexibility and racism. He gives a first-hand account of part of America's history that is being systematically forgotten. I would like to add that one does not need to believe that Bill Ayer's fight was just in order to find this account interesting and provocative. Furthermore, the author, realizing the most fundamental rule of historiography, even explains that his memories are subject to his own biases and interpretation, being inciteful enough to see that no one's memory, even his own, is precise. This is a book which, love it or hate it, everyone should read.
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Summary: Fascinating life story offers hope in turbulent times
Review: After reading the other reviews about this book, I was prepared not to like it. What I found instead was a riveting, fascinating story which succeeds in spades in conjuring up the mood and motivations behind the radical groups of the '60s. True, Bill Ayers is not exactly repentant. But, I didn't read this book looking for an apology. I read it because I wanted to know how and why the Weathermen did what they did, how they managed to stay "underground" for so long (amazing details here) and how Ayers feels with hindsight. I got answers to most of these questions, plus things I never expected. Want to know how Ayers helped bust Timothy Leary out of jail? You'll find it here. (Also,if you're a Chicagoan, you'll find the book especially interesting, as some of the most amazing activity took place right in this city). True, many of the details are disturbing. The parts about bombing the Pentagon and the glee the Weathermen brought to the task would be upsetting in any context and are even more so right now. Still I think this book offers lessons and hope for today. The fervor the Weathermen brought to their cause and their unshakable belief in their cause's sympathy shed light on present day terrorist psychology. There are also thought provoking perceptions about American involvement in other countries' politics and culture. Here's the hope part: Ayers does a remarkable job describing the 60's turbulence. I'm not old enough to remember it, but after reading this book I felt I'd lived through it. If the U.S. got through those times, I believe we'll get through present times, too. And, I must give some credit to Ayers. Although he is not as apologetic as we might hope (I think he owes his parents an apology for starters), he is not entirely unrepentant, either. Numerous times, he admits to misplaced arrogance and misguided tactics. He also manages to explain the series of events and "logic" that culminated in the group's violent legacy. Infuriating at times but never boring. And ironically, he scores some valuable points about the definition of justice. I was not very happy about most of what I read in this book, but I turned the final page feeling like whatever I'd lost in enjoyment, I'd gained in insight. It was worth the read. If you still doubt the book's insights, read this passage: "I remember everyone sleeping the deep American sleep, the sleep that still engulfs us and from which I worry we might not awake in time ... The world roils in agony and despair ... and our ears are covered, our eyes are closed. Perhaps only the bark of bombs at our door will shake us up after all." (p. 285)
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Summary: The Ace Ventura of the ramparts
Review: (...) Okay: what do we have here with this book? The subtitle identifies it as "A Memoir," but that's not a very good generic fit. How many memoirs have you read wherein the author keeps pestering you every 5 pages with reminders that his account of his own past cannot be trusted or believed. Ayers does this with an interminable succession of italicized passages, each of them a high-flying poetic meditation on the gossamer nature of memory, the impossibility of accurate recall, the slipperiness of subjectivity, etc etc etc.
Ayers' first such declaration, on page 7, cannot be quoted here (...). Let us paraphrase it thus: "Memory is an Oedipal coefficient." On a regular basis throughout the book, Ayers renews his license to lie and dissemble with more and more and more of this italicized gibberish: "Memory is a house of mirrors, a land of make believe. . . . a delicate dance of desire and faith, a shadow of a shadow. . . . a way of forgetting, a way of filtering. . . . Memory is a marvel, quick as a monkey and just as silly. . . ." and so on and so forth. A solid 5% of this book is dedicated to rendundant declarations concerning the ineffable elusiveness of memory. [By the by, the above quotations are a fair sample of the cloyingly precious "fine writing" that permeates the book. ] Never for a second would it occur to the author that there are sources of information out there in the world in relation to which the veracity of his unreliable memory can be checked and controlled. It's indicative of the solipsism of Ayers' mind that not a single other work on the 1960s is cited in his self-serving --what shall we call it, autohagiography? Naughtobiography? It's obvious that Ayers feels that these repetitive prose-poems on the unreliability of memory place him and his book in a higher category of honesty than the run-of-the-mill memoirist, who might deny the influence of subjectivity. They don't. There's more accuracy, more honesty in the average "as-told-to" showbiz autobiography than there is here. Anyway, true to his promise, Ayers omits from his narrative anything that might be of genuine interest or import to an understanding of his life and times. He's clearly gloatingly unrepentingly proud of his past (& especially of all of the Movement babes he shagged --oh boy do we hear a lot about this) but at the same time he evades any actual discussion of the criminal acts that are the basis of his sick claim to fame. Ayers can't actually talk about any of the bombings and robberies and stuff, not just because memory is a blind gerbil in swimming in a sea of cold pea soup or whatever, but because his persisting code of revolutionary omerta forbids it. "In our conflict," writes the tenured tough guy , his intact, " we don't talk; we don't tell. We never confess." Okay, so shut up, already. There are so many genuinely interesting topics Ayers could have told us about: the internecine sectarian power struggles among various members of the Weather cult. The details about how he used family clout and money to buy himself out of trouble with the law. The process whereby he and alpha Weathergirl Bernadine Dohrn made the transition from the hard-rutting "Smash Monogamy" sexual politics of "the Movement" to bourgeois wedded bliss in Hyde Park. How's that work, Bill? Inquiring minds want to know. And hey, what kind of a family did Bill and Bernadine, erstwhile admirers of the Manson Family, ultimately spawn? On the latter subject, Ayers is characteristically coy: "We had our ways and weirdnesses, but that, too, is another story." More to the point, I'd guess, is that its a story that wouldn't easily accomodate the author's Ace Ventura-like vanity. Don't hold your breath for a more revealing sequel. Here's what you ultimately get: Ayers' self-assessment of himself as a pretty neat and righteous guy. Oh sure, he admits to a few foibles ---"pride and loftiness"---- but these, he would have us know, should be measured against his many virtues: "confidence, passion, optimism and hope, some humor" (p. 284). Hey, what's a little "loftiness" mixed in with a cornucopia of traits like that? Another big pay-off is this: "We crossed the line and came back" (p. 263). Ayers is talking here about the fact that he and his Weatherpals used to plant bombs, but later they stopped. It would never occur to this egotist that it is not for him to say whether or not he and his accomplices have "come back." Let's ask the family of a certain slain Brink's security guard about that, shall we? I don't know what else to say about this thoroughly diseased book. I read it with clenched teeth. My reaction had nothing to do with politics, except insofar that Ayers' manifest personality disorder is characteristic of the sectarian left.
Rating:
Summary: An Obscene Self-Justification
Review: Everything that is destructive to the civic culture of this country is exemplified by this morally obtuse piece of self-indulgence. Here is a man born to privilege who in his youth advocated terrorism as a means of achieving social change (for what ends does not seem to have been clear even to him)and who wrote of the radical anti-American Weather Underground: "I don't regret setting bombs. I feel we didn't do enough." Well, has enough been done for him now, with the murder of the more than six thousand innocent men and women on September 11? "Bring the revolution home," he advised the young. "Kill your parents, that's where it's really at." The man is beneath contempt, but even worse is the stupidity of the publishers and media reviewers who take him seriously and still worse is the mindlessly corrupt "education" system that makes him a "distinguished professor" in a position to influence others too young to have learned history or experienced life. The book is sickening in its hypocrisy and should be read only as an example of the kind of arrogant fanaticism that undertakes to bring the world into alignment with one's own utopian ideas by any means no matter how violent and how destructive. The man who wrote it should have the grace to be embarrassed and to keep quiet.
Rating:
Summary: An Unrepentant Terrorist Earns Royalties
Review: Unlike a previous poster, I am not a conservative. I am a liberal. Nevertheless, I found this self-serving awkwardly "literary" memoir to be highly repugnant. Ayers, an unrepentant domestic terrorist who by his actions helped spawn a wave of bombings, armed robberies, and other terrorist acts that lasted into the 1980s and resulted in numerous deaths, spends half his time avoiding unpleasant truths and the other half attempting to weave a clumsily poetic romanticized version of the 60s and the counterculture. The Weather Underground was a terrorist organization and many of its members--at least those who did not kill themselves while making bombs--still deserve to be in jail. Ayers and his wife and fellow terrorist largely escaped the consequences of their illegal and immoral actions, and now he apparently will turn them to profit with this book. If you have to read this book, if you absolutely have to, let me borrow from Abbie Hoffman and urge you to steal rather than buy it.
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