If, like me, you know relatively little about the Sacco and Vanzetti case then I would absolutely recommend not reading this book. At least don’t read this until you’ve read the others that supposedly deal with the case, and have maintained enough interest to understand the “affair,” as postulated by Temkin.

This is simply too much information about the response from/ramifications within too many corners of intellectual, political, and journalistic societies. Imagine the slight tinge of nausea induced by looking at your Grandmother’s plate at Old Country Buffet. I’ll likely never pick up another book about this case if only to avoid the possibility of confronting yet more quotes and letters from French guys. Oh, enough with the Frenchmen already…I’d rather listen to Greeks who claim they invented everything and thus, there’s nothing left for them to do except drive erratically.

Anyway, I will say that for those of you who seek a nice primer on every individual response elicited by the case – from Massachusetts to Norway, from 1921 to whenever Dukakis posthumously pardoned them or whatever, then this is your book. It’s actually, I guess, of scholarly value. But is it a “good read”? If his five chapters had been further subdivided for clarity – to say, 27 chapters – then I think the content would be far more enthralling. But in my opinion it all comes off as a somewhat rambling, hyperactive narrative with mere glimpses of clarity here and there. ( )