"This country's leading hell-raiser (The Nation) shares his
impassioned counsel to young radicals on how to effect constructive
social change and know "the difference between being a realistic radical
and being a rhetorical one."
First published in 1971 and written in the midst of radical political
developments whose direction Alinsky was one of the first to question,
this volume exhibits his style at its best. Like Thomas Paine before
him, Alinsky was able to combine, both in his person and his writing,
the intensity of political engagement with an absolute insistence on
rational political discourse and adherence to the American democratic
tradition.