Spiritual Criminals
How the Camden 28 Put the Vietnam War on Trial
$42.40
- Paperback
256 pages
- Release Date
24 October 2024
Summary
A surprising look at the 28 Catholic radicals who raided a draft board in 1971—and got away with it.
When the FBI arrested twenty-eight people in connection to a break-in at a Camden, New Jersey, draft board in 1971, the Bureau celebrated. The case should have been an easy victory for the department—the perpetrators had been caught red-handed attempting to destroy conscription documents for draftees into the Vietnam War. But the results of the trial surprised everyone…
Book Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780226834382 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10: | 0226834387 |
| Author: | Michelle M. Nickerson |
| Publisher: | The University of Chicago Press |
| Imprint: | University of Chicago Press |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Number of Pages: | 256 |
| Release Date: | 24 October 2024 |
| Weight: | 426g |
| Dimensions: | 229mm x 152mm x 18mm |
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Critics Review
“An authoritative text about a Vietnam-era protest and its aftermath, Spiritual Criminals covers a momentous historical event and demonstrates the power of social justice movements.” – Kristen Rabe * Foreword Reviews *
“Nickerson’s detailed history, brimming with facts and concepts, reclaims a key chapter in the annals of American antiwar activism.” * Booklist *
“A book like Spiritual Criminals has the potential to offer a significant contribution to U.S. Catholics’ understanding of our history and provide inspiration for political activism today. Nickerson’s question—Is there anything left of the Catholic left?—remains salient. And the endings to the Camden 28’s stories can help provide an answer.” * National Catholic Reporter *
“Nickerson’s definitive account of this underappreciated episode in antiwar history also complicates the standard historiography of the Catholic antiwar movement. But beyond its scholarly merit, it’s an urgent, timely book, particularly as millions of people across the country are grappling with how to reckon with—and resist—contemporary war-making. The teachings of the Catholic Resistance, we learn, are more relevant than ever.” * Commonweal Magazine *
“A tale told brilliantly and thoroughly, placing it among the best in the literature on 1960s radicalism… . Highly recommended.” * Choice *
“Fascinating… Nickerson’s book is a wonderful contribution to the scholarship on peace history.” * Peace & Change *
“In these terrible days, with American democracy on the brink of collapse, people keep asking, “What should we do?” To consider the possibilities, you might want to start by reading Michelle Nickerson’s splendid Spiritual Criminals.”
* Equal Writes *“Spiritual Criminals tells an interesting and important story.”
* Journal of Church and State *For legal scholars, Spiritual Criminals has much to offer as a case study of a fascinating trial that illuminates by contrast the sterility and predictability of more routine criminal proceedings. Nickerson is a historian of politics and social movements, whose prior work has examined the role of women in postwar conservative politics, and Spiritual Criminals rests upon the methods of social history. Nickerson draws upon her own interviews with participants, as well as trial transcripts, published memoirs, and an array of archival materials, to construct a riveting but concise narrative. As such, Nickerson delves more briefly than a legal historian might have into the evidentiary doctrines and courtroom procedures that shaped the trial, but she does provide enough legal context to make clear how unusual the trial was in many respects.
* Journal of Law and Religion *“In Michelle Nickerson’s often moving Spiritual Criminals, twenty-eight mostly lay Catholics confronted their Church and the US government to end the Vietnam War by destroying draft board records. Nickerson’s story of faith, betrayal, theology, and a trial that shockingly acquitted the Camden 28 offers poignant testimony to the power of moral suasion in a compromised world—a deftly researched, powerfully written, deeply touching book.” – Jon Butler, author of ‘God in Gotham: The Miracle of Religion in Modern Manhattan’
“Spiritual Criminals takes us into the lost but thrilling world of the Vietnam-era Catholic Left, where young people wrestled with great moral questions in dramatic and daring ways. The story of the Camden 28 is a political page-turner, wonderfully well told. It reminds us that the terms ‘religious’ and ‘right’ did not always go together. It also has much to teach today’s antiwar activists, as both a model and a cautionary tale.” – Beverly Gage, author of ‘G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century’
“Spiritual Criminals beautifully illuminates not only one of the most contentious court cases of the Vietnam war era but the forgotten religious and political worlds beneath the trial. Radical priests, nuns, and Catholic laypeople emerge from these compelling pages as central to the anti-Vietnam war effort, and their successes and travails tell us much about the trajectory of 1960s era activism.” – John McGreevy, University of Notre Dame
About The Author
Michelle M. Nickerson
Michelle M. Nickerson is professor of history at Loyola University Chicago. She is the author of Mothers of Conservatism: Women and the Postwar Right and coeditor of Sunbelt Rising: The Politics of Place, Space, and Region.
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