American Heiress: The Wild Saga of the Kidnapping, Crimes and

American Heiress: The Wild Saga of the Kidnapping, Crimes and Trial of Patty Hearst

From New Yorker staff writer and bestselling author of The Nine and The Run of His Life: The People v. O. J. Simpson, the definitive account of the kidnapping and trial that defined an insane era in American history
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OnÂ February 4, 1974, Patty Hearst, a sophomore in college and heiress to the Hearst family fortune, was kidnapped by a ragtag group of self-styled revolutionaries calling itself the Symbionese Liberation Army. The already sensational story took the first of many incredible twists on April 3, when the group released a tape of Patty saying she had joined the SLA and had adopted the nom de guerre â€œTania.â€
Â Â Â The weird turns of the tale are truly astonishingâ€”the Hearst family trying to secure Pattyâ€™s release by feeding all the people of Oakland and San Francisco for free; the bank security cameras capturing â€œTaniaâ€ wielding a machine gun during a robbery; a cast of characters including everyone from Bill Walton to the Black Panthers to Ronald Reagan to F. Lee Bailey; the largest police shoot-out in American history; the first breaking news event to be broadcast live on television stations across the country; Pattyâ€™s year on the lam, running from authorities; and her circuslike trial, filled with theatrical courtroom confrontations and a dramatic last-minute reversal, after which the term â€œStockholm syndromeâ€ entered the lexicon. Â
Â Â Â The saga of Patty Hearst highlighted a decade in which America seemed to be suffering a collective nervous breakdown. Based on more than a hundred interviews and thousands of previously secretÂ documents, American Heiress thrillingly recounts the craziness of the times (there were an average of 1,500 terrorist bombings a year in the early 1970s). Toobin portrays the lunacy of the half-baked radicals of the SLA and the toxic mix of sex, politics, and violence that swept up Patty Hearst and re-creates her melodramatic trial. American Heiress examines the life of a young woman who suffered an unimaginable trauma and then made the stunning decision to join her captorsâ€™ crusade.Â Â
Â Â Â Or did she?

From the Hardcover edition.
Country USA
Manufacturer Random House Audio
Binding Audio CD
ReleaseDate 2016-08-02
UnitCount 12
Format Audiobook
EANs 9780449807507

Country	USA
Manufacturer	Random House Audio
Binding	Audio CD
ReleaseDate	2016-08-02
UnitCount	12
Format	Audiobook
EANs	9780449807507

American Heiress: The Wild Saga of the Kidnapping, Crimes and Trial of Patty Hearst

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