This book was purchased for a History course, American. It is one of the most unusual books I have ever opened. It is unique! I cannot say I read the entire thing. The author is a poetess of some note and the language is very poetic. It is also convoluted and excessive. I wondered how the other, much younger, students coped with it.
There is, as a result, a great deal of information of the life and times of Eugene Debs and his father and every one they met! The senor Debs was born in France about 1830. As a young man he met a girl from his village whom he was forbidden to marry. The young couple elope to America and settled in Terre Haute Indiana. Here Eugene himself was born in 1855. There is a great deal of interesting information about the settling of the Midwest, especially Indiana and Illinois. We learn why the Wabash was important, which most of us know from "On the Banks of the Wabash", a song in our music lessons. As young Debs grows up he becomes involved in the Socialist movement. He is eventually the Foremost leader of the Socialist movement in America. He ran for President on the Socialist ticket many times.
This book could be improved and the information it contains preserved by re-issuing it with better editing. Perhaps as three books! There is ample material.
Now that I have written this review I think I will not give it away, but retrieve it and read it in small bites! ( )

"I believe that all my work explores the human desire or obsession for utopia, and the structure of all my works is the search for utopias lost and rediscovered. " - M. Young. Book brought to publication by Chs. Ruas.