Obscene in the Extreme The Burning and Banning of John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath

Few books have caused as big a stir as John Steinbeck'sThe Grapes of Wrath, when it was published in April 1939. By May, it was the nation's No. 1 bestseller, flying off store shelves at a rate of 10,000 copies a week. But in Kern County, Californiathe Joads' newfound homethe book was burned publicly and banned from library shelves.Obscene in the Extremetells the remarkable story behind that fit of censorship, a moment when several lives collided as part of a larger class struggle roiling the nation. It is a superb historical narrative that serves as an engaging window into an extraordinary time of upheaval in America, when as Steinbeck put it, "A revolution is going on."

Rick Wartzman is the Director of the Drucker Institute at Claremont Graduate University in California and a fellow of the New America Foundation. He is the co-author, with Mark Arax, of The King of California: J.G. Boswell and the Making of a Secret American Empire.