Breaking Ranks - Hardcover

Everett, Melissa

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0865711348 ISBN 13: 9780865711341

Publisher: New Society Pub, 1988

Synopsis

This book is about heroes, although most of them would protest to hear themselves so described. They are people who have become so concerned over global issues that they have quit jobs, challenged employers, given up high honors, jeopardized personal security and family relations, burned bridges, and risked ridicule. They are squeaky wheels and misfits in the noblest American tradition, and they have devoted themselves to fighting another American tradition: our zeal, often denied but more often demonstrated, to go to war.

About this title

From Library Journal

These books are about dissenters: People who feel strongly that our society or government has treated them or others unjustly. Breaking Ranks focuses on ten men--former cold warriors, military and civilian--who became disillusioned with their original stances on nuclear deterrence and American interventionist policies in the Third World. Some of them have become pacifists while others speak out against U.S. government military defense policy. The Courage of Their Convictions contains vignettes of 16 men and women who fought for their civil rights all the way to the Supreme Court. The cases were heard between 1940 and 1986 and dealt with race, religion, civil protest, and privacy. Both books allow their subjects to state their views on why they decided to take a stand and fight for their particular cause. While all of these individuals faced moral dilemmas, the accounts in Breaking Ranks are especially vivid. Both books are highly recommended.
- Gary D. Barber, SUNY at Fredonia Lib.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Publishers Weekly

The 10 men whose stories are told here once held powerful jobs in or connected with the American military complexthe CIA; nuclear weapons labs and factories; the army; the foreign service. But each man began questioning the morality of the industry he served, broke ranks and chose instead to work as peace activists. Their stories range from the dramatic (Bill Perry's tension-filled stint as director of public relations for the Livermore Lab) to the contemplative (physicist Tom Grissom's realization, after 15 years at a major weapons design lab, that he could no longer reconcile his ethics with his work). Everett ( Bearing Witness, Building Bridges: Interviews with North Americans Living and Working in Nicaragua ) ably profiles them, but the men also speak cogently for themselves, weighing whether personal gain or collective happiness matters more.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: New Society Pub
• Publication date: 1988
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0865711348
• ISBN 13: 9780865711341
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 242