Radical; A Portrait of Saul Alinsky
New York: Nation Books, 2010. First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. The format is approximately 5.75 inches by 8.5 inches. xiii, [1], 237, [5] pages. Notes. Index. DJ has some sticker residue. Nicholas von Hoffman (October 16, 1929 – February 1, 2018) was an American journalist and author. He worked as a community organizer for Saul Alinsky in Chicago from 1953 to 1963. Later, Von Hoffman wrote for The Washington Post, and most notably, was a commentator on the CBS Point-Counterpoint segment for 60 Minutes, from which Don Hewitt fired him in 1974. von Hoffman was also a columnist for The Huffington Post. In the 1950s, he worked for Saul Alinsky as a field representative of the Industrial Areas Foundation in Chicago, where his best known role was as lead organizer for The Woodlawn Organization. Ben Bradlee hired von Hoffman from the Chicago Daily News. In her memoirs, Katharine Graham wrote of him: "My life would have been a lot simpler had Nicholas von Hoffman not appeared in the paper." She added "I firmly believed that he belonged at the Post". Saul David Alinsky (January 30, 1909 – June 12, 1972) was an American community activist and political theorist. His work through the Chicago-based Industrial Areas Foundation helping poor communities organize to press demands upon landlords, politicians, bankers and business leaders won him national recognition and notoriety. Responding to the impatience of New Left activists in the 1960s, Alinsky–in his widely cited Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer – defended the arts both of confrontation and of compromise involved in community organizing as keys to the struggle for social justice. From Left to Right, one man has influenced them all: Saul Alinsky. Radical is a personal portrait of this controversial mastermind of popular movements, a man who is often called the American Machiavelli. The tactics and strategy of Alinsky, who died in 1972, have been studied by people as diverse as Barack Obama, Cesar Chavez, Hillary Clinton, Dick Armey, the Tea Partiers, and activists and organizers of every persuasion. Thousands of organizations around the country owe their inspiration and origins to Alinsky—who is to community organizing what Freud is to psychoanalysis. As told by his friend and protégé Nicholas von Hoffman, whom Alinsky dubbed “in all the world my favorite, drinking, talking, and thinking companion,” Radical is an intimate look at the man who made a career of arming the powerless and enraging the powerful. From Alinsky’s smuggling guinea pigs into the Joliet state penitentiary to the famous Buffalo fart-in. von Hoffman’s book reveals the humor as well as the ideals and anger that drove Alinsky to become a major figure in a democratic tradition dating back to Tom Paine. Many of the stories about politicians, bishops, gangsters, millionaires, and labor leaders, which Alinsky did not want made public in his lifetime, are told here for the first time in Radical. Von Hoffman captures Alinsky’s brilliant critique of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s organizational tactics and where and why they succeeded or failed. It was a career that began in the politics and violence of the Great Depression and worked its way through the Communist threat, the racial struggles, and the Vietnam War protests of the second half of the twentieth century. The first book to explain why so many have co-opted Alinsky’s ideas, and the first to explain why so many contemporary politicians misunderstand his message, Radical will become essential reading for anyone interested in American politics, past and present. From a Publishers Weekly article: Saul Alinsky, the fiery Chicago activist whose 1971 Rules for Radicals is regarded as the organizer's bible, has already been memorialized in a biography, a documentary, and a play, which is why von Hoffman, who spent a decade working with Alinsky as an organizer, wisely offers “an homage,” as opposed to a “biography.” What follows are anecdotes and talking points—insightful, like his observation that Alinsky “won his reputation for cynicism by insisting that most of us are moved to action by self-interest first, moral principles second, if at all”. Von Hoffman writes in a style that has the beat and rhythm of Chicago street talk. Condition: Very good / Very good.
Keywords: Saul Alinsky, Radicals, Reformers, Agitator, Community Organizer, Cesar Chavez, Chicago, Civil Rights, Jack Egan, Industrial Areas Foundation, Martin Luther King, Racism, Segregation
ISBN: 9781568584393
[Book #91983]
Price: $75.00