chicago classical review

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1968. The Vietnam War was raging. President Lyndon Johnson, facing a challenge in his own Democratic Party from the maverick antiwar candidate Eugene McCarthy, announced that he would not seek a second term. In April, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated and riots broke out in inner cities throughout America. Bobby Kennedy was killed after winning the California primary in June. In August, Republicans met in Miami, picking the little-loved Richard Nixon as their candidate, while in September, Democrats in Chicago backed the ineffectual vice president, Hubert Humphrey. TVs across the country showed antiwar protesters filling the streets of Chicago and the police running amok, beating and arresting demonstrators and delegates alike.

In Miami and the Siege of Chicago, Norman Mailer, America's most protean and provocative writer, brings a novelist's eye to bear on the events of 1968, a decisive year in modern American politics, from which today's bitterly divided country arose.

Reviewer: Bruce Watson
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: American Politics -- 'Twas ever thus
Review: Those who were not alive or conscious in 1968 might dismiss this as history, but Norman Mailer's brilliant reportage from the 1968 conventions skillfully skews American politics then and now. His elaborate portraits of politicians still ring true. The upstart Ronald Reagan -- "For years in the movies he had played the good guy and been proud of it. If he didn't get the girl, it was because he was too good a guy to be overwhelmingly attractive.... Since this was conceivably the inner sex drama of half of respectable America, he was wildly popular with Republicans." And here's Mailer on the robotic Nixon: "SMILE said his brain. FLASH went the teeth. But the voice seemed to give away that..." Even Mailer's lament for the American Left seems fresh: "The Left was not ready, the Left was years away from a vision sufficiently complex to give life to the land, the Left had not yet learned to talk a cross the rugged individualism of the more rugged in America..." So read this as history, or as the best of the New Journalism, but it is also politics, sadly, as usual, presented without the usual detachment.

Reviewer: EarlyBird
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: On the Ground in '68, in Real Time
Review: I am a softy for Mailer's macho, self-referencing, self-glorying style. He was famous for putting his massive ego in the middle of the action, testing his physical courage, using his celebrity for a cause, and he certainly did in Chicago during the Democrats' riotous convention in '68.This is by no means an academic history of the conventions or the politics of '68. For that you must look elsewhere. This was published very closely after the Republican and Democratic conventions of that year, and as such, Mailer expects the reader to know a lot about the candidates and the politics that roiled that era.I actually think I enjoyed certain parts of his take on the mild and orderly GOP convention in Miami more than I did the mess in Chicago.Mailer had a brilliant eye for the tiny details of mid-century America, and goes on rambling, poetic, mystical rants about the country he adored and which often disgusted him. The descriptions of clothing, convention attendees, furniture, the bars and bands and smoke-filled convention halls are simply brilliant.One item sticks with me for its humor. On the heels of the assassination of MLK, Jr. and Bobby Kennedy, political violence was in the air, yet in Miami, the various GOP candidates for the nomination walked right onto the tarmac from their plane into crowds of supporters. Mailer was appalled. Remarking on the crowd surrounded by police with their "huge revolvers," and hovering helicopters, he wrote (paraphrasing): "This was not security, it was the promise of retribution." Hilarious.

Reviewer: Robert Liss
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: What a fabulous accounting of one of the oddest moments in our history!
Review: I first read this book when it was first published almost 50 years ago. I had forgotten, not the event itself, but how great an author Mailer really was. His descriptions of the characters involved and the places where all of this history took place is nothing short of brilliant.Yes, we were all crazy - especially Mailer - but this was a moment in history not to be forgotten. Read this accounting of it, whether for the first time or the second, and I promise you won't forget it either.

Reviewer: James A. Mcclure
Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Mailer was a better reporter than partisan
Review: In the first half of the book, Mailer is an excellent reporter and critical observer covering the Republican convention. In the second half, he is a committed partisan recounting his active participation in the protests surrounding the Democratic convention. The first half of the book is better.

Reviewer: bobwearda
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Stockyards
Review: The writer of this book must have been at these places. The graphic clarity is too profound to be imagined. Norman Mailer, Ernest Hemmigway, and MacKinlay Kantor are 3 of my favorites.

Reviewer: Jim R.
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Shows The Dayley Machine For How Chicagoan's Know It
Review: He goes to Miami to cover the republican convention of 1968 and goes on and on about how wrong they are. That is the first 1/3 of the book. Then he goes to Chicago to cover the DNC and while he rips on Mayor Dayley and his need to control and has the attitude of I'll show them, that was pretty accurate.It is true the police in Chicago had to restore some order in spots but those kids were not there to light the city on fire or anything. What Mailer should have focused on was at the time, what a mess the democratic party was and how it was still reeling from the loss of JFK and then RFK.I gave it three stars because it is so descriptive.But if you are looking for a balanced view, don't count on it from Mailer.

Reviewer: Chicago Pete
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Great perspective on a historical time
Review: The establishment and the counter culture clash in a momentous time. Neither will be the same again. A literary review of history with personal experience added. Mailer's access with reporters credentials and personal admiration from the youth groups offers a unique perspective into the time.

Reviewer: wooden leg
Rating: 2.0 out of 5 stars
Title: More Than you Want to Know
Review: I wanted to learn more about the 1968 conventions. This book did not work for me. I read a lot of fictionalize history, but this one just seems to provide too much detail of the fiction and does not get enough into the history to make the reading of the history worthwhile. I'll try another author for this.

Reviewer: T. Edwards
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Exceptional writing - brings the conventions of 68 to life vividly. Mailer never falters in his critical eye, turning it even against himself. Hard not to see 68 as the dawn of modern America.

Reviewer: Elinor Steenson
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: good