Rating: 
Summary: Weathermen continue under cover
Review: Fugitive Days
The new looks of Radical Weathermen are as "Distinguished Professors" and Legal Clinic Directors. Ayers makes the limp excuse after the WTC bombing that "..we are witnessing crimes against humanity" to distinguish his and Dohrn's actions from those of later day bombers. Isn't that what his bombings of police stations, the Pentagon, and Capitol building represented? Were these lives less important to their families? One thing we've learned in the last few days is that people can blend into our society and then resurface as terrorists. How do we know that Ayers and Dohrn aren't waiting for their next destructive opportunities, and certainly use their positions of trust to do further damage to society?
The University of Illinois and Northwestern University should reexamine their standards for those who can corrupt the minds of our young people.
Rating:
Summary: A Horrible Book on All Levels
Review: First, Fugitive Days is poorly written and confused. It seems to have been written only when the author was really stoned.
I can forgive poor writing. I can't forgive the extreme self-rightiousness and lame justifications for Ayers life as an American terrorist. He tries to refute that label. The hard facts are that he participated in bombing the Pentagon, the Capitol, police stations and who knows what else. He appears to have no real remorse. I honestly don't think this guy should be walking the streets. Ayers genuinely scares me, which is why I'm not signing my name to this review. Another wierd thing about this book is the constant bragging about his sexual conquests -- page after page.
I was against the Vietnam war also. Ayers, however, seems to have learned nothing since the war ended. His world is still black and white: bad guys include cops (whom he STILL calls pigs), capitalitsts, frat guys and the country that has been so merciful with Ayers. He would have been executed if he terrorized China, Cuba, Vietnam or most of the other countries he still sees through rose colored glasses. The good guys are still Karl Marx, the North Vietnamese, the working class, people who hurt cops, Che, Fidel and violent "activists." For Ayers, time has stood still. He justifies himself but honest reflection is rare.
The only value in this book is that it does provide insight into the strange and twisted mind of a terrorist. Reading it, I can better understand what happened on September 11.
Rating:
Summary: Do Not Let This Publisher Profit From Suffering
Review: Well, I don't see how anyone can feel too good about buying Professor Ayers' book now.Great struggles always seem to attract a few people who ride them as vehicles for their own gratification, or those who feel that a legitimate cause pursued by illegitimate means can add up to anything other than an illegitimate result. It is troubling enough that Mr. Ayers once felt that terror was a viable way to achieve social change. Troubling, but not surprising. What is much more disturbing is that raising and teaching children does not seem to have raised his empathy for individual human beings. A wild-eyed young man might not know better, but a parent and teacher certainly should. ...
Rating: 
Summary: A hero of the 60s speaks out
Review: An unrepetant hero of the 60s speaks out!
Those of us living here, in the belly of the beast,
can only honor someone who struck blows against the empire.
He was an active veteran of the Vietnam war, on the side
of the Vietnamese people. Read how people organized
and fought to win the Vietnamese war for the people! And remember: Resist their current racist war!
Bill Ayers story can serve as inspiration for those of us who live here, in the country that is engaging in a vicious atrocity in murdering people in Afganistan and where the controlled news media is filled with lies 24 hours a day. One day, we will all be free. This book, whatever else one can say about it, is inspiring. Good going Bill.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting but ultimately disappointing
Review: First, some straight facts. Ayers is, and was, a "radical from the sixities", but many of his radical actions were at the tail end of that infamous decade and a good portion of this book relates to the seventies, 1970 to '75, not the over-reported, mythical "60's". Second, he was not representative of "baby boomers" or even the anti-Viet Nam war movement and, though you can't tell it from the bio sketch or the book, he might even be too old to be a member of that much maligned group, the boomers.
Ayers was a key member of a small splinter group known as Weatherman. It can aruged that his group, and other "direct action" radicals, actually helped put an end to the serious, mass movement against the war in Viet Nam by going so far out in front of the understanding of the American public as to appear to have landed from some distant planet. To the older generation, they appeared to be the living, breathing, violent confirmation that the anti-war movement was unpatriotic and even bent on the ultimate destruction of the America. They were right about the war in Viet Nam, but probably little else. All that said, this is a fast paced, quick trip through the minds of hearts of one sub-set of deadly serious radicals. Ayers is most honest in revealing his youthful fantasies about women, free love and about the attractions of beer, dope and a freewheeling way of life. He faithfully reconstructs the all too rapid, and slippery, path to radicalism taken by himself and his commrades (his term). He takes pride in their ability to live underground and elude the FBI, while planning and carrying out their clandestine actions. This is a highly useful book for those who lived some measure of adult life in the time period and for those who, coming afterword, might not understand even a small fraction of what happened to the country. He takes us on a fast ride through the malleable minds of youth set on revolution or self destruction, whichever comes first. Ultimately, however, to me this is a dishonest book by a man who demonstrates little or no growth from the period of his extreme youth and extreme politics. This is a difficult conclusion for me to assert, because I was a sometime active participant in the anti-war movement at about the same time as the author (though, I think, considerably younger than he). I briefly dated the younger sister of one of the main characters in the weatherman psycho-drama mentioned prominently in the book and I was entirely sympathic to their goal of ending the war. Despite the fact that the Weatherman were often times seen as borderline crazies even within the movement, I would like to believe that some good could come from such difficult times. I know that they believed they were out to save our country, in the same way that, a hundred years earlier, those who opposed slavery took on an unpopular, and dangerous, cause. If they had succeded, we might now call them heros. Ayers, to my eye, explains little or nothing of the historical, social, poltical and personal decisions that led him toward smashing windows, building bombs and fighting hand to hand with the police. It/s as if he woke up one day and found himself to be a radical, one who was, somehow, personally, deeply charged with carrying out radical acts unlike any in American history. While the group was middle class and intelllectually oriented, there is no hint of educated people feeling their way toward difficult conclusions. What about the intervening 25 or so years? Has his thinking changed? Is he agast at his younger self? Aside from saying repeatedly that the weatherman actions were far in front of their abilities, he makes few, if any, apologies. There is no critical looking back in this book, only an attempt to recreate the borderline insanity of youthful arrogance combined with a strong sense of mission that propelled a small group of people to believe that they could take the world by the tail and shake it till it did what they wanted. At one point in the book, he says he and a fellow radical wondered if their whole generation was doomed. No, Bill, you were doomed. The young people of that era have gone on to do many things, some good, some bad, some wonderful. This book will do little to help people understand the why of what came very close to being America's second civil war. It is valuable, nonetheless, because it takes us behind the scenes, and, in a cusory fashion, into the brains of one radical group. It clearly demonstrates their dedication and determination to the cause, if not their intelligence. In a purely logical sense, the weatherman, and others, were completely correct in deciding that strong action was required to try to prevent the deaths of several million Vietnamese and tens of thousands of American soliders. They failed to realize, however, that they were completely incapable of taking strong enough actions to reverse the policy of their government and, instead, were entirely capable of turning much of the nation against the anti-war movement. No radical group was capable of action, of the nature envised by Ayers and others, that would have made one whit of difference to the government. A thousand three pound bombs, on a thousand days, was not enough. None should have ever been planted. While the book is a disappointment, there are truths to be learned. Why did the radicals of that era believe, for example, that everything in life was connected to everything else and that all of life had to be put right in a flash? Where is the well of arrogance from which the belief can be drawn that anyone at anytime in the world could perform such a task? In this respect, the book is something of a desent into madness. We can only be glad that the seventies are long since over. A generation is not to blame for the bad results that occurred, but something deeper in the human condition and in the American need to search for perfection. Ayers doesn't have clue, nor is he looking for one.
Rating:
Summary: wow
Review: I burned through this book -- couldn't put it down. It's an amazing and fast-paced story - it's hard to believe it really happened. The fact that it's a history text and I learned tons seems like a bonus! Thanks for the great read! When's the movie coming out???
Rating:
Summary: Great Read
Review: I whipped through this book in 3 days. Just couldn't put it down. Bill Ayers writes with passion and conviction, and his story is captivating. What would make the son of a CEO, a kid from a prestigious suburban prep school, become a radical anti-war revolutionary who was on the lamb, living under a false name for twelve years? Read the book and find out. It's a great story, and it offers a perspective on the sixties that is honest and inspiring.
Rating:
Summary: brave and straight-forward
Review: Thank you to Bill Ayers for providing compelling and accessible context for history that's basically impossible for my generation (not yet born in the 60's) to navigate. 1960s stories and reflections slip easily into hype and hind-sight-heavy moral lore; Ayers' book avoids both beautifully. Fugitive Days is a brave and straight-foward story of a war/time so violent and crazy that it inspired acts of rage and protest in the least likely (and most American) suspects. In the articulation of his own journey from a pampered suburb to the FBI's most wanted list, Ayers reflects honestly, warmly, and with the tremendous dual forces of irony and dignity -- on why he did the things he did. And even though the story is an unusual and intensely specific, Ayers makes it (for us) a universal coming of age. He serves up the 60s in a smart and empathetic voice. Neither self-congratulatory nor tortured with regret, Ayers is simply the clear, focused narrator of a hard and complicated story to tell. Finally, he seems to want less to set the record straight than to create a personal record of one of the most important and difficult times in American memory. Brave of Ayers to use personal genre to take personal responsbility, and brilliant that he provided this stark inside story and steered clear of rants, confessions and apologies.
Rating:
Summary: An unbelievable memoir!
Review: Thank god this book has finally come along. With most treatments of the sixties these days filled with either chest-thumping patriotic indignation or warm and fuzzy hippy love, Ayers' new memoir is a welcome breath of fresh air. He tells the story of a truly American journey -- from the upper crust society of Glen Ellyn, Illinois to running from the FBI as a member of the radical Weathermen anti-war group -- with skill, humor, and a healthy dose of irony. It brings the decade alive. This is the best American memoir I have ever read. Great storytelling and a sense of moral outrage that burns off the page. Five stars!
Rating:
Summary: A book with a lesson
Review: Firstly, I am not going to lie and say that I am not politically biased.
I found the book enthralling, and would recommend it to anyone - including my extremely conservative father. Those that seem to hate this book are forgetting what the purpose of books are: to provide a view or idea that may be different from your own and challenges you to think. This book does an excellent job at that with a writing style that conveys intelligence an understanding.
As for the content, many may be offended, and that's ok. If everyone got just one idea out of this book and hated everything else, the world would be a better place. It is this: indifference is the opposite of moral. So if there is an injustice in this world, do something about it!
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