Going back in time to read America the Raped

I was one of the most radical people at my small women's Catholic college, Marygrove in Detroit, MI. I wrote for the school paper, where all the radicals congregated and subscribed to Ramparts.

The book, AMerica the Raped, by Gene Marine, former Ramparts' writer, was published the year I graduated, 1969, which was also the year of Woodstock.

I bought the book when it came out in paperback but didn't read it because I felt I didn't have to: I knew what it said and lived an ecologically sensitive life. So, it stayed on my shelves over the past 30 some years. About two years ago, it started yelling at me: Here I am! Come and read me. I ignored it. Cleaning my house which desperately needs it in hopes of selling it, I started straightening the shelf below the one where America has lived for nearly 20 years and found I had to read it.

Everyone I knew in Detroit in those days read the book, which was something of a Bible. My former boyfriend, who prides himself on his leftist politics, claims to have never heard of it. Trying to track down Marine (I like to know when the authors of books I read were born and where), I was surprised to discover he is a slightly younger age peer of my father and the late Marlon Brando, having been born in 1926!

How many of you remember the book? Was it a bible for your social group or did you make fun of it?

BTW: reading it now, I can only say that the more things change, the more they remain the same.