Let Them Call Me Rebel

In the course of his flamboyant career as an all-purpose activist, Saul Alinsky went from organising working-class ethnics in one of Chicago's most blighted neighbourhoods to mapping out strategies for the civil rights and antiwar movements of the 1960s. He enlisted allies—from Catholic clergymen to labour unionists and black activists—in battles waged against opponents from slumlords to the Eastman Kodak corporation. The range of Alinsky's activities, the intensity of his beliefs, and his exhilarating mixture of crudeness and calculation almost vibrate off the pages of this passionate and inspiring biography.

This is an important account of a complex and idiosyncratic urban populist who insisted that power was the keystone of social change. Horwitt produces a comprehensive appraisal of Alinsky's colourful confrontational tactics as a community organiser and his influence on a succeeding generation of social activists.

Let Them Call Me Rebel is an insightful and well-written study. —Library Journal