See here: a war against the United States waged by apocalyptic ideologues who condemn the nation as incorrigibly immoral, the cause of the world’s woes. See there: a cross-country war against the police, ruthlessly attacked — a number of them murdered in cold blood — because they happen to be wearing uniforms that identify them, in the eyes of race-obsessed assailants, as the muscle end of oppressive government. See all around: a coterie of radical lawyers fighting passionately for sociopaths, blurring the lines between zealous representation and complicity and skewering the government for lawless surveillance and the shredding of due process.
Is that a synopsis of post-9/11 America, perhaps with special focus on the recent, violent fallout of racially charged incidents involving young black men and police officers? We could be forgiven for assuming so. Memories are short, after all, and our own times deeply troubled. In truth, though, the synopsis just as aptly captures the 1970s, the most sustained period of anti-American terrorism and anti-police violence in modern American history. That is amply demonstrated by Bryan Burrough’s engaging new history of the era.
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