The Sacco-Vanzetti Affair
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America on Trial
Moshik Temkin
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Format: PaperPrice: $39.00
A fresh assessment of the infamous murder case that exploded into an affair of international concern
What began as the obscure local case of two Italian immigrant anarchists accused of robbery and murder flared into an unprecedented political and legal scandal as the perception grew that their conviction was a judicial travesty and their execution a political murder. This book is the first to reveal the full national and international scope of the Sacco-Vanzetti affair, uncovering how and why the two men became the center of a global cause célèbre that shook public opinion and transformed America’s relationship with the world.
Drawing on extensive research on two continents, and written with verve, this book connects the Sacco-Vanzetti affair to the most polarizing political and social concerns of its era. Moshik Temkin contends that the worldwide attention to the case was generated not only by the conviction that innocent men had been condemned for their radical politics and ethnic origins but also as part of a reaction to U.S. global supremacy and isolationism after World War I. The author further argues that the international protest, which helped make Sacco and Vanzetti famous men, ultimately provoked their executions. The book concludes by investigating the affair’s enduring repercussions and what they reveal about global political action, terrorism, jingoism, xenophobia, and the politics of our own time.
“This most recent study . . . surpasses all prior analyses of this subject in terms of scope, erudition, and objectivity. Timely given the contemporary attacks America faces abroad for its policies and justice system, this signal study is worthy reading.”—Gilles Renaud, Library Journal, starred review
“This exemplary international history reveals for the first time the full scope and multiple meanings of the Sacco-Vanzetti affair."—Richard Wightman Fox, University of Southern California
"Temkin's original contribution is to set the case of Sacco and Vanzetti in international context, and he does so in engaging and energetic fashion."—Sarah Farmer, University of California, Irvine
“What could possibly have united so many unlikely bedfellows in support of a pair of radical anarchists? Why did Sacco and Vanzetti attract so much attention given the much more widespread injustices done to black Americans in the criminal justice system? Why did a cause that gained so much national and international support ultimately fail? And what does the case tell us about relations between the United States and the rest of the world between the wars? Moshik Temkin does a brilliant job answering these questions. And in his answers, it turns out, lie the roots of the current controversy over America’s war on terror.”—David Cole, London Review of Books
“Moshik Temkin has written a brilliant contribution. . . . The Sacco-Vanzetti Affair is a remarkable achievement, a serious book about a sensational subject.”—French Politics
“Moshik Temkin has written an engaging book on the political impact and debates spawned by the Sacco and Vanzetti affair. In a novel way, he uses them to illuminate the deep socio-political and cultural fissures in American life, which have remained enduring over time.”—Jeremy Kuzmarov, History News Network
“This judicious study adds value to any historical debate on transatlantic relations. It is a must for critical students of the so-called American century in all its reaches.”—Tom Goyens, Labor: Studies in Working-Class History of the Americas
Publication Date: October 18, 2011
20 b/w illus.
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