Nader: Crusader, Spoiler, Icon - Softcover

Martin, Justin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0738208574 ISBN 13: 9780738208572

Publisher: A Merloyd Lawrence Book by Basic Books, 2002

Synopsis

As a public figure, Ralph Nader is virtually without parallel, playing a lead role on the national stage for nearly four decades. Since the time he rattled the automotive industry with Unsafe at Any Speed, Nader has played David to a series of formidable Goliaths-General Motors, Microsoft, the pharmaceutical and auto insurance industries-until 2000 when he took on both major party political candidates. In this last campaign he managed to skew the election while endangering the very causes he had spent his life espousing. The mystery and controversy surrounding him will draw readers to this revealing portrait.

About this title

Review

Rolling Stone magazine approvingly called him "the most dangerous man in America." Owners of GM stock had less favorable epithets for him after his Corvair exposé. So did many voters, convinced that Al Gore lost only because of Ralph Nader's disruptive presence on the ballot.

Nader, Justin Martin writes in this meticulous biography, has "always taken everything to the extreme." Famed as the founder of the Nixon-era consumer-advocacy group Nader's Raiders, Nader has reveled in his gadfly role and has not been shy of using the courtroom to press his points, from auto safety to electoral reform. Inflexible, fiercely private, and single-minded, Nader seems not to care about being liked--which has lost him many potential allies among his natural constituency, Martin suggests. But he also gets things done, as even his detractors acknowledge.

Martin's book reveals Ralph Nader's many sides, admirable and otherwise. It makes thought-provoking reading for contrarians, would-be crusaders, and students of contemporary politics, no matter how they view Nader's role therein. --Gregory McNamee

About the Author

Justin Martin is a former staff writer at Fortune magazine whose work has also appeared in Newsweek, Worth, Travel & Leisure, and ESPN magazines. He lives in New York City.

Edition details

• Publisher: A Merloyd Lawrence Book by Basic Books
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0738208574
• ISBN 13: 9780738208572
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 352