Miami and the Siege of Chicago
An Informal History of the Republican and Democratic Conventions of 1968
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4.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
In this landmark work of journalism, Norman Mailer reports on the presidential conventions of 1968, the turbulent year from which today’s bitterly divided country arose. The Vietnam War was raging; Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy had just been assassinated. In August, the Republican Party met in Miami and picked Richard Nixon as its candidate, to little fanfare. But when the Democrats backed Lyndon Johnson’s ineffectual vice president, Hubert Humphrey, the city of Chicago erupted. Antiwar protesters filled the streets and the police ran amok, beating and arresting demonstrators and delegates alike, all broadcast on live television—and captured in these pages by one of America’s fiercest intellects.
Praise for Miami and the Siege of Chicago
“For historians who wish for the presence of a world-class literary witness at crucial moments in history, Mailer in Miami and Chicago was heaven-sent.”—Michael Beschloss, The Washington Post
“Extraordinary . . . Mailer [predicted that] ‘we will be fighting for forty years.’ He got that right, among many other things.”—Christopher Hitchens, The Atlantic
“Often reads like a good, old-fashioned novel in which suspense, character, plot revelations, and pungently describable action abound.”—The New York Review of Books
“[A] masterful account . . . To understand 1968, you must read Mailer.”—Chicago Tribune
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Morey sounds too earnest and boyish to be the voice of Norman Mailer, but he has a masterly grasp of Mailer's rhythms and long, staccato sentences stuffed with similes and metaphors. Thus the listener can easily grasp the meaning of Mailer's provocative 1960s New Journalism. Morey manages to express the intensity of Mailer's visions and views of "the journalist" (as Mailer calls himself in the book). It's fun to think what Mailer would be writing about the 2016 election, and enlightening and entertaining to share his experience of the turmoil and violence that encompassed the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. A Random House paperback.
