Synopses & Reviews
From the bestselling author of Public Enemies and The Big Rich, an explosive account of the decade-long battle between the FBI and the homegrown revolutionary terrorists of the 1970s.
The Weathermen. The Symbionese Liberation Army. The FALN. The Black Liberation Army. The names seem quaint now, when not forgotten altogether. But there was a stretch of time in America, roughly between 1968 and 1975, when there was on average more than one significant terrorist act in this country every week, and the FBI combated these groups and others as nodes in a single revolutionary underground, dedicated to the violent overthrow of the American government.
The FBI’s response to the leftist revolutionary counterculture has not been treated kindly by history, and it is true that in hindsight many of its efforts seem almost comically ineffectual, if not criminal in themselves. But part of the extraordinary accomplishment of Bryan Burrough’s groundbreaking book is to temper those easy judgments with an understanding of just how deranged these times were, how charged with menace. Burrough re-creates an atmosphere that seems almost unbelievable just forty years later, conjuring a time of native-born radicals, most of them “nice middle-class kids,” smuggling bombs into skyscrapers and detonating them inside the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol, at a courthouse in Boston, at a Wall Street restaurant packed with lunchtime diners. Radicals who robbed dozens of banks and assassinated policemen, in New York, San Francisco, Atlanta. The FBI’s fevered response included the formation of a secret task force called Squad 47, dedicated to hunting the groups down and rolling them up. But Squad 47 itself was not overly squeamish about legal niceties, and its efforts ultimately ended in fiasco.
Benefiting from the extraordinary number of people from the underground and the FBI who speak about their experiences for the first time, Days of Rage is filled with important revelations and fresh details about the major revolutionaries and their connections and about the FBI and its desperate efforts to make the bombings stop. The result is mesmerizing and completely new—a book that takes us into the hearts and minds of homegrown terrorists and federal agents alike and weaves their stories into a spellbinding secret history of the 1970s.
Review
“Impressively researched and deeply engrossing.” LA Times
Review
“[A] rich and important history...deep and sweeping....wide-ranging and often revelatory interviews with many Weather alumni.” Washington Post
Review
“Burrough has interviewed dozens of people to compile what is surely the most comprehensive examination of ‘70s-era American terrorism . . . Burrough, a longtime Vanity Fair correspondent, recalls story after story of astonishing heists, murders, orgies, and wiretaps. Few of his subjects are sympathetic, but all are vividly drawn. He refrains from making moral judgments, which makes the material he presents all the more powerful . . . this book is as likely as a definitive history of Vietnam-era political violence as we are ever likely to get.” Boston Globe
Synopsis
From the bestselling author ofPublic EnemiesandThe Big Rich, anexplosive account of the decade-long battle between the FBI and thehomegrown revolutionary movements of the 1970s
The Weathermen. The Symbionese LiberationArmy. The FALN. The Black Liberation Army.The names seem quaint now, when not forgottenaltogether. But there was a time inAmerica, during the 1970s, when bombings by domestic underground groups were a daily occurrence. The FBI combated these and other groups as nodes in asingle revolutionary underground, dedicated to theviolent overthrow of the American government.
In Days of Rage, Bryan Burrough re-creates an atmospherethat seems almost unbelievable just forty yearslater, conjuring a time of native-born radicals, most of them nice middle-class kids, smugglingbombs into skyscrapers and detonating them insidethe Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol, at a Boston courthouse and a Wall Street restaurant packed withlunchtime diners. The FBI s fevered response included the formation of a secret task force called Squad 47, dedicated to hunting the groups down and rolling them up. But Squad 47 itself broke many laws in its attempts to bring the revolutionaries to justice, and its efforts ultimately ended in fiasco.
Drawing on revelatory interviews with members of the underground and the FBI whospeak about their experiences for the first time, Days of Rageis a mesmerizing book that takes us into the hearts and minds ofhomegrown terrorists and federal agents alikeand weaves their stories into a spellbinding secrethistory of the 1970s.
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About the Author
Bryan Burrough is a special correspondent at Vanity Fair and the author of five previous books, including The Big Rich and Public Enemies. A former reporter for The Wall Street Journal, he is a three-time winner of the John Hancock Award for excellence in financial journalism.