100% The Story of a Patriot eBook Upton Sinclair
Download As PDF : 100% The Story of a Patriot eBook Upton Sinclair 
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100% The Story of a Patriot eBook Upton Sinclair
This is one of the lesser books by Upton Sinclair, but still written with his usual flair. There is no question of his ability as an author; his descriptions of people and events are captivating even when he gets carried away. He was every bit the avowed Socialist, even running under that banner for the governorship of California in the 1930's. His most noteworthy books were those unveiling the horrors of the meatpacking industry in Chicago and the coal-mining industry in Colorado; both led to major legislative reforms."Patriot" has the same reform-minded basis, but here it is the governmental harassment of Socialists and Communists in World War I era America that he is after. He follows the life of a ne'er-do-well young man who gets sucked into working as an undercover agent for the corrupt local government, his job:pretending to be a Socialist. He reports on all the activity of the "Reds" so that local law enforcement can round them up and beat the daylights out of them. The poor fellow ends up getting pummeled by both sides before finally ending up a well-paid hero of the Right.
Written during World War I (published in 1920), there was a great deal of anti-war sentiment in the U.S., fueled partly by anti-Bolshevik fears.Of course, Sinclair maintained his anti-Capitalist position his whole life; but he may not have written this book ten years later, when the positive impact of the U.S. in the defeat of the Kaiser's army was more fully appreciated.
As in all his books, the story itself is entirely engaging. But, as in his more noteworthy books, his politics overwhelms the reader more and more as the predictable end draws near, eventually drowning out the colorful fiction in Socialist diatribe. Much of what he says is, of course, true; but one wonders if he recognized, before his death in 1968, the ugly facts about Soviet Communism; how Stalin's brutality rivaled even Hitler's. Not to mention how Communism totally stifled the European continent. It is unfortunate he didn't live to see the regime fall apart, taken down from within.
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100% The Story of a Patriot eBook Upton Sinclair Reviews
Books are classic for a reason.
I was thrilled to be able to download the Upton Sinclair collections, and I am slowly getting to each of the books.
The books were referred to in some of the modern science books I read. That alone made me curious.
I am sure there are professional reviewers out there who have already said what needed to be said in their reviews for all of Upton Sinclair's works. I won't even attempt a review of the novel's content.
I just love that it was free and available to me, a user.
A good book about a drifter who floats from one con artist to the next in order to be manipulated at his own and the expense of others. He finds himself working for the secret police force of big business in a fictional, yet all too real "American City" during WW1. Over time he realizes he's being manipulated by being forced and threatened into trying to frame "Reds" and tries various ways to make money by double crossing both the Reds and his secret police. He ends up paying the price over and over and learns to just simply be a good 100% American by smashing Reds and being an honest worker, only lying or taking liberties to fight the communists or anything that sounds left wing in the name of freedom and democracy.
The book is obviously a political satire and picture of Red Scare 1 America, at least one part of it. Sinclair includes an appendix adding clarity about the real world events he was referencing and alluding to in "100%." Anyone interested in more non fiction data on lesser known aspects of the labor struggle around WW1 may find "The Brass Check" meaningful.
Every American should be required to read this book so history does not repeat itself. I enjoyed this book very much. ThenI finished it and discovered that most of it was true. I was not taught this in my history class at school. This book is a "must read."
I've read several novels by Upton Sinclair, but, given how prolific he was, that's only scratching the surface of his prodigious body of work. I think The Jungle is one of American literature's true masterpieces, but I could never find another of his books that even belongs in the same league with that great work. Until now, that is. 100% The Story of a Patriot, originally published in 1920, is a brilliant novel of the struggle between labor and big business in America during the First World War. While combat was raging in Europe, a war between the classes was taking place on the home front. This novel provides a vivid look into the paranoia of that era, and the brutal tactics employed in the conflict between the Reds (Socialists) and the Whites (capitalists). It's no secret which side Sinclair leans toward, but the best part about the book is that he ingeniously tells the story not from the Reds' point of view but through the eyes of their enemy.
Peter Gudge is a luckless, loveless loser who's recently been fired from his job. His resumé lists a string of credentials as assistant to an assortment of con men. While wandering through the streets, bemoaning his present situation, he happens upon a patriotic rally. Suddenly, a bomb goes off, apparently planted by a terrorist. Peter is found at the scene and apprehended by the police. He is imprisoned, interrogated, and tortured by the secret service of the Traction Trust, a shadowy organization of agents who protect the interests of big business. They want to pin the bombing on a prominent labor leader named Goober, so they recruit Peter to become an agent for them and infiltrate the local community of Socialists and Anarchists. Since he was falsely accused and tortured by the police, the Reds welcome him with open arms. Peter proves quite adept at his newfound vocation, and soon becomes an invaluable asset to the capitalist cause. Though he initially undertook the job purely out of self-interest, he soon begins to believe in the cause he's fighting for and views himself as a true American patriot.
100% consists of 86 brief chapters, and there's nary a dull moment among them. This is no typical espionage novel, but it is frequently suspenseful. The emotional tone ranges from laugh-out-loud funny to heartbreakingly tragic. Sinclair, true to form, exaggerates the class struggle, or rather, he collects all the most disgraceful, brutal, reprehensible acts ever perpetrated against the labor movement and condenses them into one fictional location dubbed American City. By telling the story from Peter's point of view, Sinclair elucidates the misguided mindset that allows "patriotic" Americans to see such actions as justified. One can see parallels between the jingoism of the World War I era, as depicted by Sinclair, and the Cold War paranoia of the Reagan Era, the xenophobia that followed 9/11, or the police brutality against the Occupy Wall Street movement. Times of crisis often create an opportunity for civil liberties to be trampled upon. In this book, Sinclair doesn't push Socialism so much as he merely pleads for an end to such draconian tactics in favor of a fair, non-violent playing field for the clash of ideologies.
The most common criticism against Sinclair's work is that his fiction is essentially propaganda, as if that were to negate its literary value. Propaganda and literature are not mutually exclusive. Sinclair is like the liberal equivalent of Ayn Rand. Though both are great storytellers, to them a novel's not just a novel, it's a means of changing the world. Such conviction is admirable, even if you don't buy wholeheartedly into the message they're selling. After all, if a novel's not preaching something, what's the point? If nothing else, 100% will open your eyes to a new perspective on American history that you never got from your high school textbooks.
This is one of the lesser books by Upton Sinclair, but still written with his usual flair. There is no question of his ability as an author; his descriptions of people and events are captivating even when he gets carried away. He was every bit the avowed Socialist, even running under that banner for the governorship of California in the 1930's. His most noteworthy books were those unveiling the horrors of the meatpacking industry in Chicago and the coal-mining industry in Colorado; both led to major legislative reforms.
"Patriot" has the same reform-minded basis, but here it is the governmental harassment of Socialists and Communists in World War I era America that he is after. He follows the life of a ne'er-do-well young man who gets sucked into working as an undercover agent for the corrupt local government, his jobpretending to be a Socialist. He reports on all the activity of the "Reds" so that local law enforcement can round them up and beat the daylights out of them. The poor fellow ends up getting pummeled by both sides before finally ending up a well-paid hero of the Right.
Written during World War I (published in 1920), there was a great deal of anti-war sentiment in the U.S., fueled partly by anti-Bolshevik fears.Of course, Sinclair maintained his anti-Capitalist position his whole life; but he may not have written this book ten years later, when the positive impact of the U.S. in the defeat of the Kaiser's army was more fully appreciated.
As in all his books, the story itself is entirely engaging. But, as in his more noteworthy books, his politics overwhelms the reader more and more as the predictable end draws near, eventually drowning out the colorful fiction in Socialist diatribe. Much of what he says is, of course, true; but one wonders if he recognized, before his death in 1968, the ugly facts about Soviet Communism; how Stalin's brutality rivaled even Hitler's. Not to mention how Communism totally stifled the European continent. It is unfortunate he didn't live to see the regime fall apart, taken down from within.
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