Avrich, Paul : City University of New York Queens College / City University of New York Graduate School and
University Center
Paul Avrich is Distinguished Professor of History at Queens College and the Graduate School, the City University
of New York. His books include Anarchist Portraits and The Haymarket Tragedy, published by Princeton University
Press.
Review
"Avrich] uses Italian sources to situate Sacco and Vanzetti within the immigrant anarchist culture they
devoted their lives to advancing. This emphasis differentiates his book from those that preceded it and constitutes
his signal achievement.... In placing Sacco and Vanzetti in this anarchist movement, Avrich greatly expands our
understanding of them and their circle."
--Nick Salvatore, The New York Times Book Review
"Reading [Sacco and Vanzetti] is like listening to a seasoned virtuoso musician whose performance seems
effortless in its brilliance. [It] will be as compelling to the uninitiated student as to the sophisticated scholar
of anarchism."
--Candace Falk, The Journal of American History
"Avrich does away with the picture of innocent, hapless, workingclass immigrants brutalized by the state.
Sacco and Vanzetti were clearly victimized, but they were also militant anarchists, part of a small circle that
preached and practiced revolutionary violence."
-- Avrich relates their story with intelligence, grace and drama.Martin Blatt, The Nation
"The Sacco and Vanzetti case may never be fully resolved; but we have Paul Avrich to thank for bringing
us tantalizingly close to the conclusion of a fascinating story."
--George Esenwein, San Francisco Review of Books
Publisher's Web Site, January, 2004
Summary
The SaccoVanzetti affair is the most famous and controversial case in American legal history. It divided the
nation in the 1920s, and it has continued to arouse deep emotions, giving rise to an enormous literature. Few writers,
however, have consulted anarchist sources for the wealth of information available there about the movement of which
the defendants were a part. Now Paul Avrich, the preeminent American scholar of anarchism, looks at the case from
this new and valuable perspective. This book treats a dramatic and hitherto neglected aspect of the cause celebre
that raised, according to Edmund Wilson, "almost every fundamental question of our political and social system."