PATTY'S GOT A GUN - PATRICIA HEARST IN 1970S AMERICA

In this work, Graebner (The Age of Doubt: American Thought and Culture in the 1940s ) reconsiders the kidnapping and trial of heiress Patricia Hearst in the context of psychiatry, media, politics, and popular culture in the 1970s. The book is divided into two parts: the first half is a detailed recitation of the kidnapping of Hearst by members of the Symbionese Liberation Army, or SLA (an American self-styled urban guerrilla warfare group active in the 1970s); the crimes committed by her; and her trial and conviction. In the second part, titled "Reading Patty Hearst," the author concedes that no one knows why Hearst joined her SLA captors. He cites society's dismay with the chaos of the Nixon administration, the decline of the family, and the survival culture of the day. Patty's Got a Gun is a well-written, sophisticated speculation of why Hearst was convicted both by the jury and in the court of public opinion at the onset of the Reagan era. Readers looking for a livelier, more personal account should read Shana Alexander's Anyone's Daughter: The Times and Trials of Patty Hearst . For specialized collections.-Harry Charles, Attorney at Law, St. Louis, MO