historical

John Ross is a fascinating and funny storyteller. The Publisher's Weekly dweeb who dis-ed this excellent book must have no soul. Ross might be that guy you've seen by the roadside and dismissed as a homeless drunk, however this homeless drunk tells a story everyone should know, and maybe understand. The enemy is revealed, and also the reason it is so hard to defeat.

It's true this book is funny, but it is also very moving as it traces the more pugnacious side of US Left History. You get a real sense of the actors in this drama, their personalities as well as the effect of those personalities on the unfolding of rival left "organizations." In some ways, this is a real People's History as it contains and dramatizes all the contradictions of the various movements-Stalinist, Maoist, Anarchist, etc. Ross is much more sympathetic to violent resistance than Howard Zinn is, and his running down the forgotten violence by both right and left is meant to remind us that being left can't be being in a vacuum. Pacifism, for example, didn't bring on the 8hr work day. Most importantly, it reveals that the life of a political outsider and activist need not be sheer drudgery. Though it is struggle, Ross expresses a revolutionary joy. A good primer about left history, an excellent memoir of struggle. Ross has a muscular, but finely honed prose style. A joy to read.