American Heiress: The Wild Saga of the Kidnapping, Crimes and Trial of Patty Hearst

Name: American Heiress: The Wild Saga of the Kidnapping, Crimes and Trial of Patty Hearst
Brand: DOUBLEDAY & CO
Availability: OutOfStock
Rating: 5 (1 reviews)

By Jeffrey Toobin

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Description

From New Yorker staff writer and bestselling author of The Nine and The Run of His Life: The People v. O. J. Simpson, the definitive account of the kidnapping and trial that defined an insane era in American history On February 4, 1974, Patty Hearst, a sophomore in college and heiress to the Hearst family fortune, was kidnapped by a ragtag group of self-styled revolutionaries calling itself the Symbionese Liberation Army. The already sensational story took the first of many incredible twists on April 3, when the group released a tape of Patty saying she had joined the SLA and had adopted the nom de guerre "Tania." The weird turns of the tale are truly astonishing-the Hearst family trying to secure Patty's release by feeding all the people of Oakland and San Francisco for free; the bank security cameras capturing "Tania" wielding a machine gun during a robbery; a cast of characters including everyone from Bill Walton to the Black Panthers to Ronald Reagan to F. Lee Bailey; the largest police shoot-out in American history; the first breaking news event to be broadcast live on television stations across the country; Patty's year on the lam, running from authorities; and her circuslike trial, filled with theatrical courtroom confrontations and a dramatic last-minute reversal, after which the term "Stockholm syndrome" entered the lexicon. The saga of Patty Hearst highlighted a decade in which America seemed to be suffering a collective nervous breakdown. Based on more than a hundred interviews and thousands of previously secret documents, American Heiress thrillingly recounts the craziness of the times (there were an average of 1,500 terrorist bombings a year in the early 1970s). Toobin portrays the lunacy of the half-baked radicals of the SLA and the toxic mix of sex, politics, and violence that swept up Patty Hearst and re-creates her melodramatic trial. American Heiress examines the life of a young woman who suffered an unimaginable trauma and then made the stunning decision to join her captors' crusade. Or did she?

Product details

Number of Pages:: 384
Release Date:: 2016-08-02
Publication Date:: 2016-08-02
Publisher:: DOUBLEDAY & CO
Languages:: Original: English
ISBN10:: 0385536712
ISBN13:: 9780385536714
GPSR Manufacturer Reference:: [email protected]
Weight:: 721 g
Height:: 164 cm
Width:: 241 cm
Thickness:: 40 cm

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