The latest book by Bruce Watson, “Freedom Summer: The Savage Season That Made Mississippi Burn and Made America a Democracy” will be published by Viking in June.

    As a frequent contributor to Smithsonian, Watson wrote more than 40 feature articles on subjects ranging from eels to Ferraris to the history of Coney Island. His articles have also appeared in The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Newsweek, Yankee, and The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2003. 

    “Bread and Roses” was chosen by the New York Public Library as one of “25 Books to Remember in 2005.” 

    “Sacco and Vanzetti: The Men, The Murders, and The Judgment of Mankind” was a Book of the Month Club Selection and was nominated by the Mystery Writers of America for an Edgar Award..

    Watson holds a Master’s Degree in American history from the University of Massachusetts and lives with his wife and two children in Western Massachusetts.

Reviews for Freedom Summer

    Here are some excerpts available on the author’s Web site brucewatsonwriter.com:

    • “Bruce Watson captures, with skill and sensitivity, the drama of that historic summer in Mississippi. . . This is the best account I have seen of Freedom Summer.” —Howard Zinn, author of A People’s History of the United States

    • “Bruce Watson’s Freedom Summer is an exalting narrative of a pivotal moment in American history. . . This book made me very happy and proud.” –Susan Brownmiller, author of Against our Will: Men, Women, and Rape; volunteer in Meridian, Mississippi, 1964

    • “I read with special interest this wonderfully instructive and compellingly written historical account of a fateful and decisive moment in America ’s 20th century struggle to become, finally, in all of our states, a country of ‘equal justice under the law’ . . . . Here is a past of fear and hate, but also of courage and bravery, all given a narrator’s, a scholar’s, knowing and wise documentary attention.”—Robert Coles, Harvard University, author of Children of Crisis