Description: Featuring contemporaneous and present-day interpretations of his novels and essays by historians, literary scholars, and political theorists, this book covers the spectrum of Steinbeck's writing, exploring everything from his place in American political culture to his seeming betrayal of his leftist principles in later years.
Brief description: Cyrus Ernesto Zirakzadeh is professor of political science at the University of Connecticut and former editor of the journal Polity. He has authored or edited several books, among them Social Movements in Politics, as well as scholarly articles on John Steinbeck and Norman Mailer.
Review Quotes:
"The editors are to be congratulated for assembling a political companion to John Steinbeck that is at once biographically and historically informative, interdisciplinary in its attentions, and accessibly written all the way through." -- Susan McWilliams, Pomona College