Deadly Baggage: What Cortés Brought to Mexico and How It Destroyed the Aztec Civilization
Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co. 2015
Deadly Baggage: What Cortés Brought to Mexico and How It Destroyed the Aztec Civilization explains the success of the famous Cortés expedition not by description of the personalities and actions of the key players in a historical drama but in terms of the conquest’s underlying biology, history, geology, technology, geography, and culture. Deadly Baggage includes maps and illustrations.
Read an excerpt
Selected bibliography
Press release
Buy Deadly Baggage from the publisher
The Taming of the American Crowd: From Stamp Riots to Shopping Sprees
Monthly Review Press, 2009
Barbara Ehrenreich called this book “a unique blend of popular culture and working class history—written with great flair. . . . ” CHOICE’s Current Reviews for Academic Libraries described Taming as “impassioned, with apt examples,” predicted that it would become a standard reference that is “highly recommended” for all levels of libraries, and selected the book as an outstanding academic title for 2010.
Read an excerpt
Selected bibliography
Press release [PDF]
Review from Labor History
Listen to an interview about Taming on KPFK
Buy Taming of the American Crowd from the publisher
Plundertown, USA: Coos Bay Enters the Global Economy
Hancock House in 2003
Around 2000 I visited the coastal town in Oregon where I’d spent my childhood. I was appalled by the changes that I saw there and inspired to write this book, which though no longer in print, is easily obtained through Amazon. Ariel Dorfman said of Plundertown, “By taking this heart-rending journey into his own luminous past and the more remote and somber past of the lumber town where he grew up, Al Sandine has masterfully laid bare some of the most crucial issues facing America and the world today.” Plundertown includes many photos of the Coos Bay area, past and present.
I have been a mill worker, freeway landscape groomer, claims investigator, free-clinic counselor, information officer, arbitrator, and insurance auditor. I have a graduate degree, and I’ve written many articles for political newsletters. I’ve been politically active, I’ve traveled widely, and I’ve lived in the Bay Area for many years. I look to my spouse, a clinical psychologist, for love and affection, practical advice, and better judgment than mine. I also paint.