Upton Sinclair's dramatic and deeply moving story exposed the brutal
conditions in the Chicago stockyards at the turn of the nineteenth
century and brought into sharp moral focus the apalling odds against
which immigrants and other working people struggled for their share of
the American dream. Denounced by the conservative press as an
un-American libel on the meatpacking industry, the book was championed
by more progressive thinkers, including then president Theodore
Roosevelt, and was a major catalyst to the passing of the Pure Food and
Meat Inspection act, which has tremendous impact to this day.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of
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up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.