The Jungle - Bouquins

hardcover, 416 pages

Publié 12 août 2012 par Simon & Brown.

ISBN :: 978-1-61382-847-2

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 appalling 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.

81 éditions

Mormegil@bookwyrm.social a publié une critique de The Jungle par Upton Sinclair

The Primal Scream of Socialism

3 étoiles

I am not a socialist, but I sympathize and agree with may of the problems that socialists point out. The fact that this book led Teddy Roosevelt to break up the Beef Trust is a significant fact. but as a novel I can't rate it any higher than three stars. The spectacle of human cruelty and nihilism is one of the most brutal I have ever read. If you have a family this will read like a horror novel. I'd say it is worth a read as part of history, if you are prepared for it. I am glad to have read it, but I had to pace myself. It is not a good novel, but it wasn't really meant to be a good novel so much as an agent of change. It will make it hard for you to unsee the familiar patterns of greed that grind humans into …

I am not a socialist, but I sympathize and agree with may of the problems that socialists point out. The fact that this book led Teddy Roosevelt to break up the Beef Trust is a significant fact. but as a novel I can't rate it any higher than three stars. The spectacle of human cruelty and nihilism is one of the most brutal I have ever read. If you have a family this will read like a horror novel. I'd say it is worth a read as part of history, if you are prepared for it. I am glad to have read it, but I had to pace myself. It is not a good novel, but it wasn't really meant to be a good novel so much as an agent of change. It will make it hard for you to unsee the familiar patterns of greed that grind humans into meat for profit. We might not be doing it literally anymore (which is an improvement), but we're still doing it.