1984
First Published
4.17
Average Rating
206
Number of Pages
Part of Series
Jack London did more than any other American writer to introduce his audience to socialism. In the 1st account of London's career to draw on all of his personal papers, Carolyn Johnston provides a balanced interpretation of his contributions as a radical writer. Where other writers have portrayed London as a proletarian hero corrupted by capitalism or have dismissed his radicalism as shallow, Johnston sees his legacy as ambiguous: London preached socialism & class revolution, but advocated racist & imperialist policies, epitomizing the contradictions of the early socialist movement in the USA. He was not genuinely Marxist, but moved instead from Lasallean reformism to revolutionary socialism to agrarian utopianism. He was, in Johnston's view, both a gallant success & a splendid failure as a writer & as a radical.
Avg Rating
4.17
Number of Ratings
6
5 STARS
33%
4 STARS
50%
3 STARS
17%
2 STARS
0%
1 STARS
0%
goodreads
