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Bernie for Burlington - by Dan Chiasson (Hardcover)

Bernie for Burlington - by  Dan Chiasson (Hardcover) - 1 of 1
$35.49 when purchased online
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About this item

Highlights

  • The early days and inexorable rise of the young Bernie Sanders, the one-of-a-kind visionary who changed American politics forever, told by a son of the People's Republic of Burlington, Vermont In this symphonic origin story of an era-defining politician, Dan Chiasson, a Burlington native who had a ringside seat to Bernie Sanders's development, reconstructs the rise of this American icon.
  • About the Author: DAN CHIASSON is the author of five books of poetry, including Bicentennial (2014) and The Math Campers (2020), and a book of literary criticism.
  • 592 Pages
  • Biography + Autobiography, Political

Description



About the Book



"This utterly captivating symphonic story of city, a visionary, and the way our politics changed forever is told through the very specific people of Burlington, beginning with Dan Chiasson's own mall-punk friends of the 1980s: in a video that would go viral decades later in 2020, they engaged with the itinerant carpenter turned socialist mayoral candidate, and there in that food court, the seeds of everything that was Bernie were sown. Dan, uniquely placed to bring a deep insider's perspective, knew all the players: the conservative French-Canadian Catholics whose great grandparents had worked in the mills (his own); the puppeteers and hippies and NYC transplants looking for land and "authenticity" in Vermont; the developers involved in the era's Robert Moses urban-renewal schemes; the corrupt old-school Dems at their table in the local dive; and even Ben and Jerry who became Ben and Jerry's right there in town. They all made up the mosh pit of the Burlington that Bernie captivated, running on the slogan "Burlington is not for sale," to become the modern era's first socialist mayor, intimate with his constituents across workers, cops, lefties, and the little old ladies who organized their streets; he also boasted a foreign policy, a sudden national profile, and a bullhorn to speak to Ronald Reagan. In the tradition of J. Anthony Lukas's Common Ground and the documentary films of Frederick Wiseman, this epic of American city life delves into the gossip--and the exhilaration--around Bernie's unlikely rise, as we watch an American place transformed one diner coffee, one neighborhood door-knock at a time. Full of Sanders himself, reflecting and raging, hitting his themes, forging alliances with all comers, this is a mesmerizing portrait of a politician, a place, and a movement that would change America"-- Provided by publisher.



Book Synopsis



The early days and inexorable rise of the young Bernie Sanders, the one-of-a-kind visionary who changed American politics forever, told by a son of the People's Republic of Burlington, Vermont

In this symphonic origin story of an era-defining politician, Dan Chiasson, a Burlington native who had a ringside seat to Bernie Sanders's development, reconstructs the rise of this American icon. With in-depth reporting and remarkable remembered scenes, he tracks a faint political signal that traveled from the Vermont communes, hard-luck neighborhoods, traditional businesses, and county fairs to the Town Meetings and ballot boxes of his home state, and finally to Washington D.C., to transform our national political landscape.

Sanders, insisting on a socialist platform that hasn't changed to this day, managed to build a coalition in a world of disparate types: the conservative French-Canadian Catholics whose great grandparents had worked in the mills (Dan's own); the puppeteers and hippies and NYC transplants looking for land and "authenticity" in Vermont; the developers involved in the era's urban-renewal schemes; the corrupt old-school Dems at their table in the local dive; and even Ben and Jerry who became Ben and Jerry's right there in town. Bernie captivated them all, running on the slogan "Burlington is not for sale," to become the modern era's first socialist mayor, one who got the streets paved but also boasted a foreign policy and a bullhorn to speak directly to Ronald Reagan.

In the tradition of J. Anthony Lukas's Common Ground and the documentary films of Frederick Wiseman, this people's epic shows us an American city transformed one diner coffee, one neighborhood door-knock at a time, even as the analog era wanes and a new digital politics appears on the horizon. Full of Sanders himself, reflecting and raging, hitting his themes, forging alliances with all comers, Bernie for Burlington is a mesmerizing portrait of a politician, a place, and a movement that would change America.



Review Quotes




"Story-telling has various eternal wellsprings: history and gossip, the local and the epic, jokes and legends. Bernie for Burlington orchestrates energy from all of the above in a wild variety of stories, voices and characters. At the center, Bernie Sanders of Brooklyn and Burlington is an important and unlikely hero, and Dan Chiasson of Burlington and American poetry is a masterful and unlikely narrator." --Robert Pinsky

"This is a book we need right now--a big, lovingly-woven, Whitmanesque wickerwork of grievances and glories, home truths and triumphs, about a Brooklyn kid and the city on the shore of Lake Champlain where he shaped his compassionate cause. Read it and you'll never think about local politics the same way again." --Nicholson Baker

"A fascinating portrait of hard-knocks Burlington, Vermont, and of its ingenious, enterprising, indefatigable socialist mayor, Bernie Sanders, who went from seat-of-the-pants "perennial candidate" to national fame." --Ian Frazier



About the Author



DAN CHIASSON is the author of five books of poetry, including Bicentennial (2014) and The Math Campers (2020), and a book of literary criticism. A longtime contributor to The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books, Chiasson is the Lorraine Chao Wang Professor of English and chair of the English Department at Wellesley College.
Dimensions (Overall): 9.25 Inches (H) x 6.13 Inches (W) x 1.47 Inches (D)
Weight: 1.98 Pounds
Suggested Age: 22 Years and Up
Number of Pages: 592
Genre: Biography + Autobiography
Sub-Genre: Political
Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group
Format: Hardcover
Author: Dan Chiasson
Language: English
Street Date: February 3, 2026
TCIN: 1003632889
UPC: 9780593317495
Item Number (DPCI): 247-31-4633
Origin: Made in the USA or Imported

Shipping details

Estimated ship dimensions: 1.47 inches length x 6.13 inches width x 9.25 inches height
Estimated ship weight: 1.978 pounds
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