Ravens in the Storm: A Personal History of the 1960s Anti-War Movement a book by Carl Oglesby

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Description

In 1964, Carl Oglesby, a young copywriter for a Michigan-based defense contractor, was asked by a local Democratic congressman to draft a campaign paper on the Vietnam War. Oglesby's report argued that the conflict was misplaced and unwinnable. He had little idea that its subsequent publication would put him on a fast track to becoming the president of the now-legendary protest movement Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). In this book, Oglesby shares the triumphs and tribulations of an organization that burgeoned across America, only to collapse in the face of surveillance by the U.S. government and infighting.

As an SDS leader, Oglesby spoke on the same platform as Coretta Scott King and Benjamin Spock at the storied 1965 antiwar demonstration in Washington, D.C. He traveled to war-ravaged Vietnam and to the international war crimes tribunal in Scandinavia, where he met with Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. He helped initiate the Venceremos Brigade, which dispatched thousands of American students to bring in the Cuban sugar harvest. He reluctantly participated in the protest outside the 1968 Democratic National Convention and was a witness for the defense at the trial of the Chicago Seven the following year. Eventually, after extensive battles with those in SDS who saw its future more as a vanguard guerrilla group than as an open mass movement, Oglesby was drummed out of the organization. Shortly after, it collapsed when key members of its leadership quit to set up the Weather Underground.

This beautifully written and elegiac memoir is rich in contemporary echoes as America once again must come to terms with an ill-conceived military adventure abroad. Carl Oglesby warns of the destructive frustrations of a peace campaign unable to achieve its goals. But above all, he captures the joyful liberation of joining together to take a stand for what is right and just -- the soaring and swooping of a protest movement in full flight, like ravens in a storm.

Product Details

Price

$21.99

Publisher

Scribner Book Company

Publish Date

October 01, 2010

Pages

352

Dimensions

6.0 X 9.0 X 0.88 inches | 0.94 pounds

Language

English

Type

Paperback

EAN/UPC

9781416547488

About the Author

Carl Oglesby was president of Students for a Democratic Society between 1965 and 1966. His previous books include Containment and Change and The JFK Assassination. He lives in Amherst, Massachusetts.

Reviews

"Oglesby's narrative rekindles the excitement of the 1960s when students and young professionals began making history and sensed the importance of their roles in stopping a senseless and brutal war and instigating needed social change at home. Because the book is so readable -- in an age where many students won't read "heavy prose" -- Ravens should become a text for history courses on the 1960s."

-- Saul Landau, author of "A Bush and Botox World"
"An unflinching, honest, and perceptive portrait of the sixties anti-war movement in all its promise, complexity, and contradictions. A fascinating and important book!"

-- Ron Kovic, author of "Born on the Fourth of July"
"Besides being an engaging read, this memoir about political struggle in the 1960s is a valuable document for understanding the everliving history of American liberal/radical protest."

-- Michael Parenti, author of "Contrary Notions" and "Superpatriotism"
"Oglesby's personal story is an American adventure told with charm, sadness, anger, and comedy. It's a racy read, in perfect pitch with the country-western songs of his southern Baptist roots. A must-read for anyone interested in 'how we got here today' from 'where we were in the Sixties'. The drama, heartache, exhilaration, and rage of the anti-Vietnam war movement feels so fresh it could be about our Iraq war dilemmas. His expansive, come-one-come-all mindset is a terrific shot in the arm. Unputdownable for activists, a breeze for the uninvolved."

-- Clancy Sigal, author of "A Woman of Uncertain Character"
"Carl Oglesby was known for his eloquence as a writer and speaker in those turbulent years of the movement against the war in Vietnam, when he was a leader of the Students for a Democratic Society. His memoir, written with grace and fervor, gives us a fascinating insight into the life and mind of a young radical as he immerses himself in one of the great social struggles of our time."

-- Howard Zinn, author of "The People's History of the United States"
"Carl Oglesby navigates readers through the passions, turbulence, excess, division, and movement politics of a period in American history that forever changed all who experienced it. A wild ride through the good and bad, success and tragedy of a wild era."

-- Senator John F. Kerry