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The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy
by Heather Ann Thompson
The first definitive history of the infamous 1971 Attica Prison uprising, the State's violent response, and the victims' decades-long quest for justice
On September 9, 1971, nearly 1,300 prisoners took over the Attica Correctional Facility in upstate New York to protest years of mistreatment. Holding guards and civilian employees hostage, the prisoners negotiated with officials for improved conditions during the four long days and nights that followed.
On September 13, the state abruptly sent hundreds of heavily armed troopers and correction officers to retake the prison by force. Their gunfire killed thirty-nine men—hostages as well as prisoners—and severely wounded more than one hundred others. In the ensuing hours, weeks, and months, troopers and officers brutally retaliated against the prisoners. And, ultimately, New York State authorities prosecuted only the prisoners, never once bringing charges against the officials involved in the retaking and its aftermath and neglecting to provide support to the survivors and the families of the men who had been killed.
Drawing from more than a decade of extensive research, historian Heather Ann Thompson sheds new light on every aspect of the uprising and its legacy, giving voice to all those who took part in this forty-five-year fight for justice: prisoners, former hostages, families of the victims, lawyers and judges, and state officials and members of law enforcement. Blood in the Water is the searing and indelible account of one of the most important civil rights stories of the last century.
Pulitzer Prize, 2017
National Book Award Finalist
Los Angeles Times book Prize Finalist
New York Times Notable Book for 2016
Newsweek Best Book of the Year
Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year
Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year
"Starred Review. Thompson's superb and thorough study serves as a powerful tale of the search for justice in the face of the abuses of institutional power." - Publishers Weekly
"Starred Review. Compelling . . . Sensitive . . . Impressively authoritative and thoughtfully composed." - Kirkus Reviews
"Gripping ... It's Ms. Thompson's achievement, in this remarkable book, to make us understand why this one group of prisoners [rebelled], and how many others shared the cost." - The New York Times
"Chilling, and in places downright shocking ... [Thompson] tells the story of the riot and its aftermath with precision and momentum." -The Wall Street Journal
"A masterly account ... Essential ... Blood in the Water restores [the prisoners'] struggle to its rightful place in our collective memory." - The New York Times Book Review
"A long, memorable chronicle ... dense with new information ... Thompson's capacity for close observation and her honesty [are] impressive." - The New Yorker
"Masterful." - The Nation
"Thompson's book is a masterpiece of historical research; it is thoroughly researched, extensively documented and reads like a novel ... Magnificent." - The Christian Science Monitor
"Heather Ann Thompson tracked down long-hidden files related to the tragedy at Attica—some of which have since disappeared—to tell the saga in its full horror." - New York Post
This information about Blood in the Water was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Heather Ann Thompson is an award-winning historian at the University of Michigan. She has written on the history of mass incarceration and its current impact for The New York Times,Time, The Atlantic, Salon, Dissent, New LaborForum, and The Huffington Post, as well as for various scholarly publications. She served on a National Academy of Sciences blue-ribbon panel that studied the causes and consequences of mass incarceration in the United States and has given congressional staff briefings on this subject. Thompson is also the author of Whose Detroit?: Politics, Labor, and Race in a Modern American City and the editor of Speaking Out: Activism and Protest in the 1960s and 1970s.
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