Obscene in the Extreme: The Burning and Banning of John Steinbeck's the Grapes of Wrath - Paperback

by Rick Wartzman (Author)

Few books have caused as big a stir as John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, when it was published in April 1939. By May, it was the nation's No. 1 bestseller, flying off store shelves at a rate of 10,000 copies a week. But in Kern County, California--the Joads' newfound home--the book was burned publicly and banned from library shelves. Obscene in the Extreme tells the remarkable story behind that fit of censorship, a moment when several lives collided as part of a larger class struggle roiling the nation. It is a superb historical narrative that serves as an engaging window into an extraordinary time of upheaval in America, when as Steinbeck put it, "A revolution is going on."

Author Biography

Rick Wartzman is director of the KH Moon Center for a Functioning Society at the Drucker Institute, a part of Claremont Graduate University. He also writes about the world of work for Fortune magazine online. Before joining the Drucker Institute in 2007 as its founding executive director, Rick worked for two decades as a reporter, editor and columnist at the Wall Street Journal and Los Angeles Times. While business editor of the Times, he helped shape a three-part series on Wal-Mart's impact on the economy and society, which won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting.