'The Goslings'
&
'The Profits of Religion'
By Upton Sinclair
I've been steadily acquiring the classic books of the muckrakers over the past two to three years and had so far bypassed Upton Sinclair because 'The Jungle' was technically a novel and I'm really not keen on fiction - thus my brief superficial assessment.
I recently began reading a brief but extremely informative 1942 book by George Seldes on media corruption entitled:
'The Facts Are a Guide to Falsehood and Propaganda in the Press and Radio'
http://gseldes.blogspot.com/?m=1 This book mentioned an earlier book by Upton Sinclair entitled 'The Brass Check' about how greed and subsequent monopolization had corrupted the American newspapers in the late ninteenth and early twentieth century. This book was also largely what Seldes's book was based upon.
I looked up the 'Brass Check' and found it was one of a series of six hard hitting non-fiction books by Upton Sinclair - each of which exposes the thorough corruption of an American institution by way of tracing its penetration by the love of money. The 'Brass Check' is about newspapers and journalism. The 'Goose Step' is about American universities.
The 'Goslings' is about children schools as propaganda founts. I just got this one and am looking forward to its leftist perspective as a breath of fresh air to complement pro-home school historians like Blumenthal. Appreciate how it traces the money factor and how these schools are de facto corporate propaganda replete with truant
law enforcement.
'The Profits of Religion' is a scathing indictment of the catholic and Protestant churches with actual praise for a tiny handful of leftist oriented churches. I have seen Sinclair described as rabidly anti-Christian, but I don't think so from an examination of this book which would richly complement the standard guidebook to American churches and denominations. He gives away his belief in biological evolution in the preface stating that men are descended from simians, but that's the only instance of it. Very useful book about important characteristics and red flags of which to be aware even if one's Church is not listed in the book.
I intend to collect all six of Sinclair's non-fiction series. I've thus far got three of them - old hardbacks from the 1920's and 30's.