{"product_id":"radical-innocent-upton-sinclair-9781400061518","title":"Radical Innocent: Upton Sinclair","description":"\u003cp\u003eFew American writers have revealed their private as well as their public selves so fully as Upton Sinclair  and virtually none over such a long lifetime (18781968). Sinclairs writing  even at its most poignant or electrifying  blurred the line between politics and artand  indeed  his life followed a similar arc. In Radical Innocent: Upton Sinclair  Anthony Arthur weaves the strands of Sinclairs contentious public career and his often-troubled private life into a compelling personal narrative.  An unassuming teetotaler with a fiery streak  called a propagandist by some  the most conservative of revolutionaries by others  Sinclair was such a driving force of history that one could easily mistake his life story for historical fiction. He counted dozens of epochal figures as friends or confidants  including Mark Twain  Jack London  Henry Ford  Thomas Mann  H. G. Wells  Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt  Albert Einstein  Charlie Chaplin  Albert Camus  and Carl Jung.  Starting with The Jungle in 1906  Sinclairs fiction and nonfiction helped to inform and mold American opinions about socialism  labor and industry  religion and philosophy  the excesses of the media  American political isolation and pacifism  civil liberties  and mental and physical health.  In his later years  Sinclair twice reinvented himself  first as the Democratic candidate for governor of California in 1934  and later  in his sixties and seventies  as a historical novelist. In 1943 he won a Pulitzer Prize for Dragons Teeth  one of eleven novels featuring super-spy Lanny Budd.  Outside the literary realm  the ever-restless Sinclair was seemingly everywhere: forming Utopian artists colonies  funding and producing Sergei Eisensteins film documentaries  and waging consciousness-raising political campaigns. Even when he wasnt involved in progressive causes or counterculture movements  his name often was invoked by theman arrangement that frequently embroiled Sinclair in controversy.  Sinclairs passion and optimistic zeal inspired America  but privately he could be a frustrated  petty man who connected better with his readers than with members of his own family. His life with his first wife  Meta  his son David  and various friends and professional acquaintances was a web of conflict and strain. Personally and professionally ambitious  Sinclair engaged in financial speculation  although his wealth-generating schemes often benefited his pet causesand he lobbied as tirelessly for professional recognition and awards as he did for government reform. As the tenor of his work would suggest  Sinclair was supremely human.  In Radical Innocent: Upton Sinclair  Anthony Arthur offers an engrossing and enlightening account of Sinclairs life and the country he helped to transform. Taking readers from the Reconstruction South to the rise of American power to the pinnacle of Hollywood culture to the Civil Rights era  this is historical biography at its entertaining and thought-provoking finest.  Praise \"Lively  unsparing look at the turn-of-the-century muckraker  social critic and novelist who changed the way America did business....Arthur organizes his biography into chapters reflecting Sinclairs various crusading \"selves\"e.g.  The Warrior  The Pilgrim of Love  etc.and uses a deft  light touch...An immensely readable biography.\" Kirkus Reviews  ..excellent new biography. USA Today  a model of good biography. Los Angeles Magazine  Absorbing. The Wall Street Journal  \"intimate and intellectually astute.\"- The New Yorker enlightening  frequently stinging biography . . . Arthur organizes a vast amount of information into a fast-flowing  witty  and incisive narrative. - Booklist starred review a well-researched  balanced and fascinating portrait. - Publishers Weekly \"Neither hagiographic nor condescending  Arthur is an exemplary biographer  interested in human beings for their own sake  in all their unvarnished oddity.\" - The Nation  Few authors have led as full and fascinating a career  and rare is the biographer capable of packing the fascinating fullness as compactlyand apparently completely as Arthur has done.  Chicago Sun Times  an engrossing and enlightening account of Sinclairs life and the country he helped to transform. . . historical biography at its entertaining and thought-provoking finest.  Forbes Book Club  The chapters in Radical Innocent that describe the research and writing of The Jungle  the most famous and still the most powerful of all the muckraking novels  are thrilling. . . .Arthur captures nicely Sinclairs almost absurd innocence  his boundless enthusiasm as he met journalists  welfare workers  labor organizers and the men and women who worked in the slaughterhouses.\"  Los Angeles Times  an outstanding biography. I recommend it without reservation.  David M. Kinchen  Huntington News Network Book Critic:  a bracing biography.  Boston Globe  admirable . . . compelling look at an intellectua\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67898916339765,"sku":"ByrdShop_1400061512","price":47.54,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9781400061518.jpg?v=1793785491","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/radical-innocent-upton-sinclair-9781400061518","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}