John L. Lewis,: An Unauthorized Biography [Mass Market Paperback]

Saul David Alinsky (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 1970

This book is a facsimile reprint and may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 389 pages
• Publisher: Vintage Books (1970)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0394708822
• ISBN-13: 978-0394708829
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,222,374 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Saul Alinsky was born in Chicago in 1909 and educated first in the streets of that city and then in its university. Graduate work at the University of Chicago in criminology introduced him to the Al Capone gang, and later to Joliet State Prison, where he studied prison life. He founded what is known today as the Alinsky ideology and Alinsky concepts of mass organization for power. His work in organizing the poor to fight for their rights as citizens has been internationally recognized. In the late 1930s he organized the Back of the Yards area in Chicago (the neighborhood made famous in Upton Sinclair's The Jungle). Subsequently, through the Industrial Areas Foundation which he began in 1940, Mr. Alinsky and his staff helped to organize communities not only in Chicago but throughout the country. He later turned his attentions to the middle class, creating a training institute for organizers. He died in 1972.

Customer Reviews

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5.0 out of 5 stars John L. Lewis: An Unauthorized Biography by Saul Alinsky, July 18, 2011

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Esther Torrefiel "FORMER Sim City fan" (San Francisco) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: John L. Lewis,: An Unauthorized Biography (Mass Market Paperback)

There are many books about John L. Lewis, but Saul Alinsky knew him personally and had interviewed him many times. Alinsky is an excellent writer and this biography tells a lot about the man that is not in any other biography of John L. that I have read. He does not make the man out to be a saint, nor does he make him out to be a devil. He simply explains what the times were like and what John L. Lewis did. He has many direct quotes that make Lewis seem like a real person, which of course he was. He also tells a little about John L. Lewis's family life, which made the book more interesting than biographies that only tell about his impact on the coal industry and on the growth of industrial unions.