Upton Sinclair

A "Personal Jesus" takes the life of Jesus as Upton Sinclair imagines him to be. Sinclair breaks up this novel into 3 sections- youth, mission and spirit. Again, he delves into religon and leaves his usual path of politics - but are not religions - Christianity, Judism and Islam political? A good question throughout history and especially in our modern times. As Sinclair says in the preface "the story of Jesus cannot be told without controversy, for controversy is the very essence of it". As a reviewer said, "Sinclair was a giant and this novel comes close to who Jesus was as a person than any scholarly account. And this is the magic of Sinclair". Religous believers and political activist should read this novel to get a glimpse of where Sinclair is coming from. A Collector's Edition.

As an American socialist, Upton Sinclair was fascinated by Christianity and wrote many fictional books that hummed around the main faith of Anericans. Titles like "Our Lady", "The Secret Life of Jesus" and "A Personal Jesus". "They Call Me Carpenter: A Tale of The Second Coming" is cleary set in the period when it was written in 1922 - the post WWI era. An excerpt from the story: "But you Americans have taken Christ the carpenter - I laughed. It appeared that at this moment we were passing St. Bartholomew's Church, a great brown-stone structure standing at the corner of the park. I waved my hand towards it. "In there," I said, "over the altar, you may see Christ, the carpenter, dressed up in exquisite robes of white and amethyst, set up as a stained glass window ornament. But of you'll stop and think, you'll realize it wasn't we Americans who began that "

When an injustice befalls the poor, Allan is the first to fight for what is right. But as he continues his lawsuit, he begins to realize that the very people he's fighting with are the very people who rule New York. He must be wily and careful if he is to survive this pursuit of justice.Upton Sinclair is the Pulitzer Prize winning author of Dragon's Teeth. His best known work is The Jungle, a novel about the abhorrent practices of the meat packing industry at the time.

A fellow determined to find the truth for himself about conditions in the mines, runs away from home and adopts the alias "Joe Smith." After being turned away by one coal mine for fear of Hal being a union organizer, he gets a job in another coal mine operated by the General Fuel Company, or GFC. In the mines he befriends many of the workers and realizes their misery and exploitation at the hands of the bosses. What he found there was abhorrent -- thus begins the tale of unionization and the advocacy workers' rights. Unionization, however, is easier spoken of than it is accomplished. It was a dangerous task -- for the leaders of the coal mines were hardened men, men who would not stop at petty threats and minor violence.Upton Sinclair is best known for writing The Jungle -- a novel that exposes the practices of the meat packing industry that lead to governmental investigations and changed food laws in America.

The book depicts working class poverty, the lack of social supports, harsh and unpleasant living and working conditions and a hopelessness among many workers. These elements are contrasted with the deeply rooted corruption of people in power. A review by the writer Jack London called it, "the Uncle Tom's Cabin of wage slavery."This is the novel that Upton Sinclair used to show horrific practices in the meatpacking industry in the first part of the twentieth century. Like most of Sinclair, the book ultimately becomes a paen to socialism. But the man could write, whatever his politics were, and ewww , the meatpackers were up to no damn good at all anyway. Highly recommended.

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 apalling 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.