A Bomb in Every Issue: How the Short, Unruly Life of Ramparts Magazine Changed America (Hardcover)

~ (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

“This book satisfies on every level . . .”
—New York Times Book Review

“Short, explosive, unforgotten: the story of Ramparts magazine and its lingering influence long after it was gone.”
—L.A. Times

“Peter Richardson . . . charts the publications’ high points with a gleam in his eye.”
—New York Times

Product Description

What an incredible story Peter Richardson has told! Ramparts magazine turned the Sixties on its head with a high-octane combination of avant-garde satire and gumshoe investigative reporting. A Bomb in Every Issue is an excellent history that shouldn't be ignored. I can't recommend it enough.
--DOUGLAS BRINKLEY, AUTHOR OF THE WILDERNESS WARRIOR

A Bomb in Every Issue tells the largely untold story of the wild ride of this hugely influential magazine that achieved countless firsts: it published the first conspiracy theory about JFK's assassination, it was the first to reveal that the CIA had backed the National Student Association during the Cold War, and its article about the use of napalm on Vietnamese children (another first) caused Martin Luther King Jr. to speak out against the war for the first time.

Launched in 1962 as an intellectual Catholic quarterly, within five years Ramparts had become a secular magazine and won a George Polk Award for "its explosive revival of the great muckraking tradition." Deeply committed to the civil rights and antiwar movements, its contributors included Noam Chomsky, César Chávez, Seymour Hersh, Angela Davis, and Susan Sontag. It was in its pages that Che Guevara's diaries and the prison diaries of Eldridge Cleaver (which became Soul on Ice) first appeared. Although by 1975, out of money and time, it had folded for good, Ramparts left an important journalistic legacy, influencing a generation of reporters and editors that is still apparent today.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: New Press, The (September 8, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1595584390
• ISBN-13: 978-1595584397
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #105,437 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An explosive story of Ramparts magazine, September 17, 2009

By	Duffy Jennings (Los Gatos, CA) - See all my reviews

Peter Richardson has crafted a work of thorough research and a compelling story in "A Bomb in Every Issue," the saga of Ramparts magazine. Ramparts was the quintessential leftist publication of the 1960s that changed traditional journalism and inspired a generation of investigative reporters before Watergate.

Anyone who lived or is interested in the Sixties and the emergence of the counter-culture will find this to be a fascinating backstory to the era. Richardson draws upon interviews with more than fifty writers, experts and observers of the tumultuous events that shaped much of the political and socioeconomic framework in Northern California, including Jann Wenner, Warren Hinckle, Lowell Bergman, Tom Hayden, Paul Krassner, Adam Hochschild, Robert Scheer and many more.

As a San Francisco Bay Area writer and former newspaper journalist during the late Sixties and Seventies, I thought I had a fair knowledge of the media scene at the time, but I was captivated by details here that I had never read or known of before. I heartily recommend the book.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Vivid history, steady eye, November 13, 2009

By	Stephen Cooper - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Peter Richardson's excellent first book, "American Prophet: The Life and Work of Carey McWilliams," told the story of the most important political writer to come out of 1930s and '40s California into post-war national prominence. Writing that book prepared Richardson well for "A Bomb in Every Issue," his outstanding second effort.

"A Bomb in Every Issue" traces the vivid history of Ramparts magazine, the Bay Area experiment that in little more than a decade (the early '60s through the mid-'70s) evolved from a sober-minded liberal Catholic journal of ideas into one of the most radical, irreverent and influential magazines of its time.

From Thomas Merton to Eldridge Cleaver and the Symbionese Liberation Army, from Vatican II to Vietnam and People's Park, Richardson presents a dazzling cast of characters and a heady range of issues and events. While training his focus on the ground-level California activists who made the Ramparts bomb tick--vanguard journalists, visionary publishers, and at-times downright gonzo promoters--Richardson keeps a steady eye on the larger world of American politics and culture that Ramparts illuminated and affected.

I recommend this book with enthusiasm.

2 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A blast!, September 14, 2009

By	L. Dyble - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book will blow your mind! A must-read for critical thinkers of today and tomorrow.