Underground: My Life with Sds and the Weathermen

By Mark Rudd

Book Overview

"Honest and funny, passionate and contrite, meticulously researched and deeply philosophical: an essential document on the '60s." --Washington Post

Mark Rudd, former '60s radical student leader and onetime fugitive member of the notorious Weather Underground, tells his compelling and engrossing story for the first time in Underground. The chairman of the SDS and leader of the 1968 student uprising at Columbia University, Rudd offers a gripping narrative of his political awakening and fugitive life during one of the most influential periods in modern U.S. history.

In 1968, Mark Rudd led the legendary occupation of five buildings at Columbia University, a dramatic act of protest against the university's support for the Vietnam War and its institutional racism. The charismatic chairman of the Columbia chapter of Students for a Democratic Society--the largest radical student organization in the United States--Rudd went on to become a national symbol of student revolt, and co-founded the Weathermen faction of SDS, which helped organize the notorious Days of Rage in Chicago in 1969.

But Mark Rudd wanted revolution, seeking to end war, racism, and injustice by any means necessary--even violence. By the end of 1970, he was one of the FBI's Most Wanted--and after a string of nonlethal bombings, he went into hiding for more than seven years before turning himself in to great media fanfare.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 006147276X
• ISBN13: 9780061472763
• Release Date: March 2010
• Publisher: William Morrow & Company
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.6" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Best of the Lot

This is the best insider Weatherman book I've read so far. I've read most of them as they came out, mainly to try to get some insight into what the heck happened. I was on the edge of this movement and essentially turned my back on anything political as it got more violent, feeling everyone involved was tainted. This is the first one that spoke to that taint. Mark Rudd's voice has a ring of truth and, unlike some of the authors, presents a hopeful future and does not come across as self serving.

An excellent history of life "Underground"

I found it hard to put the book down. It is fast paced, intensely personal, funny, and a little depressing. The author doesn't try to romanticize his life as a fugitive. He does give an honest account of his story; the story of the 1968 Columbia strike, the disintegration of Students for a Democratic Society, and the Weather Underground. If you have an interest in what happened to the Vietnam anti-war movement and the radicalization of the 60s, then I would give this a high recommendation. The book is well-written and doesn't dwell in a maze of acronyms of the political movements of the 60s. It ends on a positive note with the 40th reunion of the Columbia strike where the issues of the Black students at Columbia came out to a public setting for the first time.

A Must-Read

Eloquent, thoughtful, honest, and unflinching. What might have been either a polemic or apologia is instead a thoroughly engaging narrative about an unforgettable moment in American history. Mark Rudd is authentic and self-effacing. What might have been a heavy lift in less capable hands is an exciting and thought-provoking tale of ideology and courage, naivete and grandiosity, hubris and humility, patriotism and crime. Above all it is a poignant story of what America was and what it became.

*** READ IT!

This book is MUCH more than just a history about American radicals determined to change the world & the violence in Vietnam & corruption in the US government! This book is a profound self-reflection by the author who catalyzed the radical movement known as the Weathermen that erupted in the late 60's & into the 70's. This book is important historically to truly get under the skin of those "fighting for peace" in an era of immense violence outside our borders and within. Mark Rudd brings us intimately into his own thinking as he gracefully and diligently dissects his own psyche, motives from as many directions as he can in order to bring a greater understanding of what motivated this movement and all that it unleashed. Read this book with a tender awe of someone with deep regrets and the self-awareness to share what the human mind and heart is capable of doing and what enables one to make decisions of the radicle kind & so much more!! Sanctuary The Sacred Pyramid Voices of Eternity