Mark_M

Sometimes when the world seems crazy, I think back to the late 1960s. We remember the decade for peace, love, and social justice, but few periods in U.S. history can match the social and racial upheaval provoked by assassinations, the Vietnam War, riots, and domestic terrorism.

Perhaps no one had a closer seat to the insanity than Zayd Ayers Dohrn, the son of Weather Underground leaders Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn. For much of his young life, Zayd lived on the run, his parents both fugitives from the law, his mother on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list.

In DANGEROUS, DIRTY, VIOLENT, AND YOUNG, Zayd not only describes his chaotic childhood inside a radical movement, but also dismantles the family legend his parents told him - that his birth had convinced them to end their violent revolutionary struggle. Using interviews, diaries, and unpublished material, he discovers they remained in the fight far longer than they ever admitted.

Well-researched, well-written, unnervingly honest, and highly recommended. Suddenly today's chaos doesn't seem so unprecedented.