Looking for Revolution, Finding Murder

by Janet Landman

Overview

Katherine Power, while a college senior, drove the getaway car in a violent bank robbery committed in the name of revolution. One of Power's accomplices shot and killed Boston police officer and father of nine, Walter Schroeder. Power went underground. She was on the FBI's Most Wanted list longer than any other woman in history. Her surrender 23 years later was national news. Looking for Revolution, Finding Murder explores how Power came to do grave harm and how she went about a moral reckoning. Janet Landman traces how Power transformed herself from idealistic antiwar activist, to armed revolutionary, to long-term fugitive, to voluntary but defiant convict. It took years in prison doing what Power called "conscience work" before she took full responsibility for the ruin she had wrought. Landman lays out with precision, depth, and nuance Katherine Power's rocky pilgrimage toward moral reckoning. Looking for Revolution, Finding Murder reveals how criminals, sinners, and wrong-doers—all of us—can re-make ourselves as decent human beings—flawed and worthy, scarred and repaired. And something like redeemed.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940161160343
Publisher:	Paragon House Publishers
Publication date:	08/26/2019
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Janet Landman is a research psychologist, writer, and award-winning poet. She has taught psychology at the University of Michigan, Babson College, and Boston University. A recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, Landman is author of and many empirical journal articles and the nonfiction book, Regret: The Persistence of the Possible (Oxford 1993). Regret was named a Book of the Year in 1994 by The Independent and by the Princeton Theological Seminary & the Association of Theological Booksellers. She now makes her home in northern California.

Editorial Reviews

Janet Landman's book, Looking for Revolution, Finding Murder, is the most cogent account of the radical underground of the 1970s that I have ever read. It is thoughtful, profound and thought-provoking. Call it 'a meditation on the American fascination with violence' and an 'exploration of the nature of redemption.' By looking at the underground experience of Katherine Power, Landman maps the journey of one criminal/radical and illuminates a big chunk of the field of ethics.

Author of For The Hell of It:The Life and Times of Abbie Hoffman - Jonah Raskin

Katherine Ann Power was a pious Catholic schoolgirl who became, over the course of her life, a terrorist, a fugitive from the law, an imprisoned convict, and finally a free woman. But her greatest transformation was an ethical one, as beautifully documented in Janet Landman's analysis of Power's twisting path to redemption. Landman draws on philosophy, psychology, and her own fine-tuned moral sensibility to shed light on a riveting life narrative forever framed in tragedy.

Author ofThe Art and Science of Personality Development - Dan P. McAdams

...a powerful, well-written story. In this age of moral confusion and mass incarceration, it exposes the dilemmas we face, wherever we stand. It contains, as it says, 'supremely important wisdom about keeping one's dissent constructive, nonviolent, open, and accountable;' and, to quote more, the lesson that 'reprobates, criminals, sinners, and scoundrels—that is, all of us—can re-make ourselves as good human beings—flawed,' of course, but redeemable. Restorative justice's time has come.

Author of The Search for a Nonviolent Future and The Nonviolence Handbook - Michael Nagler

It is a biography of a conscience, of Power's reckoning with the damage she did and what she owed for it—to the Schroeder family, to society and the state, even, as she herself put it, "to the universe." It also reflects the conscience of another woman, Janet Landman, who over years of research and hard thinking has scrupulously considered and reconsidered her appraisals of Power. ...A bracing exploration of what it means to take responsibility, for whatever youv'e done.

Author of Cowardice: A Brief History - Chris Walsh

Years after Janet Landman's phenomenal book Regret comes her carefully written and researched book on conscience. It is an in-depth study of one person's conscience and ethical transformation. This book has arrived at a moment in history when a deeper look at protest, values, and conscience is more than necessary. Her subject, Katherine Power, is complex. It is a book that believes in human development, in taking responsibility and making reparation.

Author of Before Forgiving and The Trouble with Blame: Victims, Perpetrators, and Responsibility. - Sharon Lamb