Miami And The Siege Of Chicago An Informal History Of The American Conventions Of 1968

In this landmark work of journalism, Norman Mailer reports on the presidential conventions of 1968, the turbulent year from which today’s bitterly divided country arose. The Vietnam War was raging; Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy had just been assassinated. In August, the Republican Party met in Miami and picked Richard Nixon as its candidate, to little fanfare. But when the Democrats backed Lyndon Johnson’s ineffectual vice president, Hubert Humphrey, the city of Chicago erupted. Antiwar protesters filled the streets and the police ran amok, beating and arresting demonstrators and delegates alike, all broadcast on live television—and captured in these pages by one of America’s fiercest intellects. Praise for Miami and the Siege of Chicago “For historians who wish for the presence of a world-class literary witness at crucial moments in history, Mailer in Miami and Chicago was heaven-sent.”—Michael Beschloss, The Washington Post “Extraordinary . . . Mailer [predicted that] ‘we will be fighting for forty years.’ He got that right, among many other things.”—Christopher Hitchens, The Atlantic “Often reads like a good, old-fashioned novel in which suspense, character, plot revelations, and pungently describable action abound.”—The New York Review of Books “[A] masterful account . . . To understand 1968, you must read Mailer.”—Chicago Tribune

The 1968 Democratic Convention, best known for police brutality against demonstrators, has been relegated to a dark place in American historical memory. Battleground Chicago ventures beyond the stereotypical image of rioting protestors and violent cops to reevaluate exactly how—and why—the police attacked antiwar activists at the convention. Working from interviews with eighty former Chicago police officers who were on the scene, Frank Kusch uncovers the other side of the story of ’68, deepening our understanding of a turbulent decade. “Frank Kusch’s compelling account of the clash between Mayor Richard Daley’s men in blue and anti-war rebels reveals why the 1960s was such a painful era for many Americans. . . . to his great credit, [Kusch] allows ‘the pigs’ to speak up for themselves.”—Michael Kazin “Kusch’s history of white Chicago policemen and the 1968 Democratic National Convention is a solid addition to a growing literature on the cultural sensibility and political perspective of the conservative white working class in the last third of the twentieth century.”—David Farber, Journal of American History

Seminar paper from the year 2000 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 2 (B), Ruhr-University of Bochum (English Seminar), course: The Greening of America: Fiction and Anti-fiction in the 1960s, language: English, abstract: Mailer, the novelist, sees himself as agent for change. His critics on the other hand assign to his works the brilliancy of reportage. The nonfiction novel exists in order not to change the American situation that makes possible so much literary aggression against it. Norman Mailer′s Miami and The Siege of Chicago is an account of the 1968 Conventions in Miami (Republicans) and Chicago (Democrats). This "classic work of interpretive political reportage"4,5 consists of two parts, the first "Nixon in Miami" and the second "The Siege of Chicago". Mailer uses a device he developed to high craft: third-person story telling based on first-person participation."His style and rhetorical devices stand out among other novelists. When Mailer describes the Republican convention in Miami using metaphorical language filled with disgust he risks to offend the audience: "And the country roaring like the bull in its wounds, coughing like a sick lung in the smog [...]." His informal critical account is often directed against the audience. Even though it sounds like a paradox, with this style Mailer, the surrealistic critic and observer of American society, seems to attract many readers to his novels. The Republican Convention 1968 in Miami preceded the election of Nixon as 33rd American President, which was a close victory of 43,4% vs. Hubert Humphrey of the Democrats with a total of 42,7% votes. The Amphitheatre in Chicago, location of the Democratic Convention, had according to Mailer then the "packed intimacy of a neighborhood fightclub"8 and "the air of circus was also the air of slaughterhouse". Chicago was also home to a Yippie Convention, which made the situation worse and was reason enough for the Democrats to discuss about another location

In August 1968, Democrats gather at their National Convention in Chicago to debate a platform for a deeply divided party. Factions are split over issues such as civil rights, infrastructure, and the war on poverty—not to mention the war in Vietnam. Meanwhile, crowds of protesters descend upon the city. Impassioned antiwar demonstrators plan sit-ins and marches, while the absurdist Yippies, determined to make a mockery of the convention, intend to nominate a pig for president. Journalists flood the area to cover the stories of the delegates and protesters. Over the course of this game, players will develop a better understanding of the complexities of the social and cultural tumult that has come to be known as "the Sixties."

Originally published in 1959, Advertisements for Myself is an inventive collection of stories, essays, polemic, meditations, and interviews. It is Norman Mailer at his brilliant, provocative, outrageous best. Emerging at the height of "hip," Advertisements is at once a chronicle of a crucial era in the formation of modern American culture and an important contribution to the great autobiographical tradition in American letters.