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开 本: 16开纸 张: 胶版纸包 装: 精装是否套装: 否国际标准书号ISBN: 9780385533485
as rousing adventure story—a sizzling account of a life lived in
the thick of every important struggle of the era.
April 1973: snow falls thick and fast on the Badlands of
South Dakota. It has been more than five weeks since protesting
Sioux Indians seized their historic village of Wounded Knee, and
the FBI shows no signs of abandoning its siege. When Bill Zimmerman
is asked to coordinate an airlift of desperately needed food and
medical supplies, he cannot refuse; flying through gunfire and a
mechanical malfunction, he carries out a daring dawn raid and
success?0?2fully parachutes 1,500 pounds of food into the village.
The drop breaks the FBI siege, and assures an Indian victory.
This was not the first—or last—time Bill Zimmerman put his life at
risk for the greater social good. In this extraordi?0?2nary memoir,
Zimmerman takes us into the hearts and minds of those making the
social revolution of the sixties. He writes about registering black
voters in deepest, most racist Mississippi; marching with Martin
Luther King Jr. in Chicago; helping to organize the 1967 march on
the Pentagon; fighting the police at the 1968 Democratic
con?0?2vention; mobilizing scientists against the Vietnam War and
the military’s misuse of their discoveries; smuggling medi?0?2cines
to the front lines in North Vietnam; spending time in Hanoi under
U.S. bombardment; and founding an interna?0?2tional charity,
Medical Aid for Indochina, to deliver humanitarian assistance.
Zimmerman—who crossed paths with political organizers and activists
like Abbie Hoffman, Daniel Ellsberg, César Chávez, Jane Fonda, and
Tom Hayden—captures a groundbreaking zeitgeist that irrevoca?0?2bly
changed the world as we knew it.
Praise for Troublemaker:
“For almost half a century Bill Zimmerman has labored
with intensity for progressive causes as an organizer and political
consultant. In this new memoir he looks back on his career with
an unwavering commitment to his beliefs and an admirable
intellectual toughness and pragmatism…. He has been a key
player on dozens of issues including Wounded Knee, Central America,
Harold Washington’s mayoral campaign and medical marijuana
initiatives and fought with MoveOn.org against the Iraq War. His
tense and harrowing account of literally risking his life by flying
an airplane to drop food to the besieged American Indian Movement
at Wounded Knee gives the book a drama not found in typical
ideological memoirs… [His] is a unique and strong
voice. Troublemaker is a well-written, passionate
story of a personal journey through the Vietnam protest era, and a
valuable model for progressive activists of our own
time.”—Danny Goldberg, TheNation.com
“A political activist looks back on an eventful life.
Zimmerman (Is Marijuana the Right Medicine for You?,
1999, etc.), a working-class kid from Chicago who lost relatives in
the Holocaust, struggled from an early age with revulsion over the
idea that he might become the American equivalent of “the Good
German,” a citizen who passively condones the evil actions of his
government. His rebellious nature was nurtured in 1960 during a
year-long hiatus from studies at the University of Chicago by the
sight of French students skirmishing with police on the streets of
Paris in protest against the war in Algeria, something unheard of
in Eisenhower America. Back in America, he joined a friend working
for the Student Nonviolence Coordinating Committee in Mississippi
one summer, during which he witnessed firsthand the sickening
effects of Jim Crow racism. Politically ahead of the curve with his
peers, he led student negotiations with the university during an
occupation of Chicago’s administration building as a graduate
student, then as an assistant professor of psychology at Brooklyn
College. Soon, he was making a career fighting to end the Vietnam
War, whether it involved confronting police or his fellow
scientists and academics, shaming them for sharing research that
could be used against civilians in the war. Zimmerman reveals here
one extraordinary example of his activism: At a critical moment, he
traveled to Europe to give North Vietnamese officials some stolen
vials of newly developed penicillin that required no refrigeration,
an act which, if he had been caught, might have earned him the
charge of espionage or treason. The author’s experiences during the
war (e.g., recording on film the damage American bombs did to
cities and hospitals in North Vietnam) and after (flying a
dangerously damaged cargo plane to drop food and medicine for
besieged Indians at Wounded Knee) demonstrate that effective
political activism requires no less physical courage than that of
soldiers and federal agents. Perhaps overpacked with detail at
times, Zimmerman’s memoir is, nevertheless, both a thoughtful
eyewitness history of America’s war at home and a thrilling
political adventure story.
An engaging exhortation to take risks and live a meaningful
life.”—Kirkus Reviews
“A riveting book. Bill Zimmerman is a shining example of Tom
Paine’s ‘winter soldier,’ a patriot his country can count on in
dark times to help it end a disastrous policy or realize its
highest ideals. The war in Viet Nam, catastrophe that it was,
brought out the best in many Americans, he among them. This
is an inspiring story of a life committed to a better world.
And, what a life! What a story!”
—Daniel Ellsberg
“Bill Zimmerman gives the lie to the old saw that if you remember
the ’60s you weren’t there. He was there and he
remembers. He spent the ’60s making trouble from Mississippi
to South Dakota to North Vietnam. You don’t have to agree
with his politics to agree he has written one hell of a
page-turner.”
—Paul Begala, CNN Political Consultant
“Bill Zimmerman’s memoir is a great adventure story since he
managed to be engaged in many of the dramatic scenes of civil
rights and antiwar struggle in the sixties. We travel with
him from Mississippi to Hanoi, from the steps of the Pentagon to
Wounded Knee and many points in between, experiencing close-up how
the events of the time compelled a brilliant young scientist to
radical resistance. Zimmerman’s tales of derring-do are fused
with insightful analysis, and a history we thought we knew is
retold in surprising and moving ways.”
—Richard Flacks, Professor of Sociology, University of
California, Santa Barbara and Co-founder of Students for a
Democratic Society
“Bill Zimmerman’s tale is remarkable. I know him as a close
colleague who helped create today’s internet-aided progressive
resurgence, but he has a spellbinding story to tell of his
political adventures in the 1960s and 1970s. Activists today
will want to read this inspiring story.”
—Wes Boyd, Co-founder of MoveOn.org
“Bill Zimmerman’s wise and rollicking chronicle of his contrarian
transit across the sixties and early seventies (a sort of cross
between Zelig, Zorro, and Zapata) can help explain the political
and cultural passions of that era, both to those who lived through
them and to their progeny, better than any such text has yet
managed to do. It’s a vivid tale, elegantly
dispatched.”
—Lawrence Weschler, Director, New York Institute for the
Humanities at NYU
“Troublemaker lives up to its title in every way. A
smart, tough, incisive look at the politics of the ’60s and how
they impact us today. A look at the past that gives us a lens
on the present. Read it. Then go out and cause
trouble.”
— Robert Greenwald, Producer and Director, Brave New
Films
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