Remembrance of Things Past

Paul Jacobs has written an intensely personal autobiography. Throughout the book he is trying to tell the reader how he felt about whatever he was doing during his youth as an American radical—or at least what he now thinks were the reasons for what he did. His statement at the outset that this is “not really an autobiography” may be taken as a striking illustration of one of his recurring themes: the gap between our conscious intentions and the inner drives which shape and ofte...