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Fugitive Days | 
| Author: William Ayers
Publisher: Beacon Press
Category: Book
List Price: $24.00
Buy New: $2.32
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Avg. Customer Rating:  55 reviews
Sales Rank: 462006
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 304
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.4 x 1
ISBN: 0807071242
Dewey Decimal Number: 973.92092
UPC: 046442071246
EAN: 9780807071243
ASIN: 0807071242
Publication Date: September 10, 2001
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Condition: Book and Cover in Excellent Condition
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Product Description
Bill Ayers was born in privilege and is today a highly respected educator and community activist. For ten years, he lived as a fugitive. Ayers's story of how a young pacifist came to help found one of the most radical political organizations in U.S. history is told here with amazing candor and immediacy.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 50 more reviews...
 Memoir of A Sixties Radical With No Regrets April 29, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Bill Ayers is frustratingly vague on the specifics, hazy on the details of his life, his motives, and what compelled him to transform himself from an ordinary college student into a radical activist and leader of the Weather Underground, a group that took their protests to violent extremes.
Ayers expresses little regret for his actions, including his part in the bombing of the Pentagon. What few Americans may realize is that the early 1970's, the country was terrorized from within, by daily bomb threats and actual devices that were planted in public places. Ayers dismisses these fears, explaining that the bombs hidden by his group were always revealed in advance by telephone calls placed to the media and also to local police. This doesn't make his crimes any less violent, dangerous and disturbing.
Don't waste a dime buying this book. Check it out from the library or steal it, to paraphrase both Abbie Hoffman and an earlier reviewer of this book.
 Ayers tried to make a "silk purse out of a sow's ear" April 22, 2008
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
I believe Ayers used fiction and lies to try to make a "silk purse out of a sow's ear"! He wants his audience to "see" his pathetic, useless, violent, criminal life as some sort of heroic journey. Ayers fails, except with people who are probably as useless and messed up as he is. He regrets not doing more as a Weatherman. Since his main activity as a Weatherman was bombing, I guess he regrets not bombing more targets. There are 55 reviews of his book and only 15 give him 5 stars. Those 15 may be his former comrades in the Weathermen.
While reading his book, I kept trying to understand why Ayers became a domestic terrorist. I suspect being a middle child of five children he needed to find some way to be noticed, so he became a rebel and did poorly in school while his two older siblings were scholastic stars. His parents finally sent him to a private school, but he continued his "rebel" role. The anti-war movement was a perfect group for Ayers to find drugs, free sex, feelings of power, and a cause to rebel against. Ayers never mentioned considering any non-violent means of protesting, he went straight to using bombs. He also never mentioned considering protesting against any of the most evil and destructive governments in the world, such as Communist China and Communist Russia.
Ayers wrote that the Weatherman always phoned and warned people before they set off bombs. Ayers neglected to mention that his girlfriend's Weathermen cell was responsible for at least two incidents where they INTENDED to harm people with their bombs and did NOT give any phone warning. For example:
His girlfriend's Weathermen group accidentally blew themselves up while making a bomb filled with nails, a bomb that they intended to set off at a non-commissioned officer dance for about 240. Since they added nails to the bomb, it is clear they intended to do as much harm as possible. If they had been successful, they would have killed and wounded many officers and their wives. Luckily they only killed themselves.
The book begins when Ayers starts his fugitive life after he learns that his girlfriend has been blown up. However the book has very little information about Ayer's "fugitive days". Because his focus is not of his "fugitive days", I suspect that Ayer's fugitive days were really easy years of living under his parent's financial support until his father's money paid for lawyers who figured out how to keep Ayers from ever paying for the deaths and destruction for which he, as a leader of the Weathermen, should be held accountable. Then once Ayers didn't have to worry about getting arrested, his father probably paid for him to get a college degree and then used his influence to get Ayers a job. It is too bad that Ayers wasn't in Communist Russia when he was playing his domestic terrorist role, he might have learned just how much better the USA is than the system his communist influenced Weathermen admired.
Only in the America can an unrepentant domestic terrorist like Ayers become a professor and probably try to produce more domestic terrorists. Only in America! I hope Ayers understands just how lucky he is to live in the USA, but I'm afraid he is either too dumb or too brain washed to understand that regardless of the mistakes the USA may have made, the USA is still better than most of the rest of the world. Ayers should check out the book, "Death by Government" to learn about the real evil and cost of communism. Communists were responsible for about 62 millions deaths in Communist China and 35 million deaths in Communist Russia. Yes, it is really too bad Ayers didn't live in either Communist China or Communist Russia.
 YOU DO NEED A WEATHERMAN (PERSON) TO KNOW WHICH WAY THE WIND BLOWS-PART II July 3, 2007
2 out of 6 found this review helpful
Recently in this space I reviewed the documentary Weather Underground so that it also makes sense to review the present book by Bill Ayers, one of the `talking heads' in that film and a central leader of both the old Students for a Democratic Society and the Weather Underground that split off from that movement in 1969 to go its own way. Readers should see the documentary as it gives a fairly good presentation of the events around the formation of the Underground, what they tried to accomplish and what happened to them after the demise of the anti-war movement in the early 1970's.
To get a better understanding of what drove thousands of young American students into opposition to the American government at that time the documentary Rebels With A Cause (also reviewed in this space) is worth looking at as well. Between those two sources you will get a better understanding of what drove Professor Ayers and many others, including myself, over the edge. Professor Ayers makes many of those same points in the book. Thus, I only want to make a couple of political comments about the question of the underground here. They were also used in my review of the Weather Underground documentary and apply to Professor Ayers thoughts as well. I would also make it very clear here that unlike many other leftists, who ran for cover, in the 1970's I called for the political defense of the Weather Underground despite my political differences under the old leftist principle that an injury to one is an injury to all. Moreover, and be shocked if you will, the courageous, if misguided, actions of the Weather Underground require no apology today. I stand with the Professor on that count. Here are the comments.
"In a time when I, among others, are questioning where the extra-parliamentary opposition to the Iraq War is going and why it has not made more of an impact on American society it was rather refreshing to view this documentary about the seemingly forgotten Weather Underground that as things got grimmer dramatically epitomized one aspect of opposition to the Vietnam War. If opposition to the Iraq war is the political fight of my old age Vietnam was the fight of my youth and in this film brought back very strong memories of why I fought tooth and nail against it. And the people portrayed in this film, the core of the Weather Underground, while not politically kindred spirits then or now, were certainly on the same page as I was- a no holds- barred fight against the American Empire. We lost that round, and there were reasons for that, but that kind of attitude is what it takes to bring down the monster. But a revolutionary strategy is needed. That is where we parted company.
One of the paradoxical things about the documentary is that the Weather Underground survivors interviewed had only a vague notion about what went wrong. This was clearly detailed in the remarks of Mark Rudd, a central leader, when he stated that the Weathermen were trying to create a communist cadre. He also stated, however, that after going underground he realized that he was out of the loop as far as being politically effective. And that is the point. There is no virtue in underground activity if it is not necessary, romantic as that may be. To the extent that any of us read history in those days it was certainly not about the origins of the Russian revolutionary movement in the 19th century. If we had we would have found that the above-mentioned fight in 1969 (the SDS splits) was also fought out by that movement. Mass action vs. individual acts, heroic or otherwise, of terror. The Weather strategy of acting as the American component of the world-wide revolutionary movement to bring the Empire to its knees certainly had (and still does) have a very appealing quality. However, a moral gesture did not (and will not) bring this beast down. While the Weather Underground was made up a small group of very appealing subjective revolutionaries its political/moral strategy led to a dead end. The lesson to be learned; you most definitely do need weather people to know which way the winds blow. Start with Karl Marx."
PSYCHOS WITH PRETTY WHITE FACES October 6, 2006
7 out of 14 found this review helpful
TO THINK THAT THESE PEOPLE WILL MAKE MONEY OFF THIS HOGWASH IS VERY DISTURBING. THE AUTHOR GOES ON AND ON ABOUT HOW "RIGHT" HE WAS TO ENGAGE IN ILLEGAL ACTIVITIES - WITHOUT MENTIONING THE PEOPLE HE HURT BY HIS ILLEGAL ACTIVITIES. BUT WHAT REALLY BOTHERS ME, IS HIS MEMORY OF A 1981 ROBBERY WHERE 3 INNOCENT MEN WERE KILLED IN COLD BLOOD - THE AUTHOR DOESN'T EVEN CALL IT A ROBBERY - BUT A WAY TO GET MONEY FOR THE CAUSE. FURTHERMORE, HE GOES ON AND ON ABOUT THE HORROR OF SPECIAL RIGHTS OF WHITES OVER BLACKS, BUT FAILS TO MENTION THAT IN THE TRIAL OF THE 1981 ROBBERY KILLERS, THE BLACK ACTIVISTS GOT 75 YEARS TO LIFE, BUT KATHY BOUDIN - A WHITE FRIEND OF THE AUTHOR - PLEA BARGAINED WITH THE HELP OF HER WHITE DADDY LAWYER AND ONLY GOT 20 YEARS AND IS NOW OUT ON PAROLE. DID SHE HELP HER BLACK FELLOW ACTIVISTS? HELL, NO. WHAT HYPRICATES!!!
 Fugitive Days - A good lesson June 24, 2006
8 out of 17 found this review helpful
Contrary to what others may think/say about this book, the Weathermen was a group who wanted to promote peace. They wanted to create a revolution for a better world. It is a misconception that they were "cop killers" or were "terrorists." They simply wanted people to wake up to the atrocities of the Vietnam War and rampant racism in America.
I had the pleasure of meeting Ms. Dorhn and Mr. Ayers and they are two of the nicest people I know. They both are firm believers in peaceful resolution to problems of social injustice and are inspirational at panel discussions.
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