Reveille For Radicals.

ALINSKY, Saul.

Item Number: 110823

New York: Vintage Books, 1969.

New edition of the first book by the famed Chicago activist who “influenced generations of community and labor organizers, including the church-based group hiring a young Barack Obama to work on Chicago’s South Side in the 1980s” (ANB). Octavo, original wrappers. A new edition of Alinsky’s classic first book. A very good copy with a light crease to the top front corner and some toning to the pages. Association copy, inscribed by the author on the half title page, “To Lois who is proof that beauty does not rule out compentency Saul Alinsky p.s. also my favorite reporter.” Also includes a laid in folded note by Alinsky as well. A nice association copy as the recipient, Loise Wille, was a two time Pulitzer Prize winning Chicago journalist. In near fine condition.

Rules for Radicals, published shortly before Alinsky's death, contains the decades of his experience as an organizer and "an even larger measure of the brilliance, warmth, humor, idealism, insight, ego and skepticism of the man" (New York Times). "Alinsky's method of community organizing both prefigured and helped direct changes in social activism after WW II… emphasizing democratic process, and employing politics that were consciously non-ideological" (ANB). "Alinsky's techniques and teachings influenced generations of community and labor organizers, including the church-based group hiring a young [Barack] Obama to work on Chicago's South Side in the 1980s… Alinsky impressed a young [Hillary] Clinton, who was growing up in Park Ridge at the time Alinsky was the director of the Industrial Areas Foundation in Chicago" (Chicago Sun-Times). Rules for Radicals, he writes, is pragmatically directed at "realistic radicals… who want to change the world from what it is to what they believe it should be. The Prince was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. Rules for Radicals is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away."