Murdered by Capitalism: A Memoir of 150 Years of Life and Death on the American Left

Rating:
Summary: Ode to Bomb-throwers Past
Review: Digs into the soul of resistance in a way no cut and paste history of the American Left can. Though excessive at times, the narrative occasionally snaps and crackles like a firestream of defiance, taking one voice then another, but always returning to its source: the echo of struggles past and those to come. Also along the way are the laughs, with adventures-misadventures ranging far and wide, unable to resist any siren call from the Left. Too bad, Ross couldn't raise the shade of Earl Browder to explain the progressive potential of the Party of Roosevelt in an era of Clinton-Kerry. I don't know how many of the vintage facts he has right, but the poetics of affirmation are there in abundance and speak loud and clear to all who will listen. Worth the trip.

Rating:
Summary: The real deal
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: The real deal
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: I read it to my wife the afternoon it arrived in the mail
Review: 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.