Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Plays of Protest | 2015 | Upton Sinclair | Buy |
Plays of Protest collects four short dramatic works by Upton Sinclair that use the stage as a vehicle for social and political argument. The plays include The Naturewoman, The Machine, The Second-Story Man, and Prince Hagen, each built around a conflict between haves and have-nots. These were originally written in the early 1900s, when Sinclair was experimenting with every available form of writing to get his ideas in front of the public.
Sinclair believed theater could reach audiences who might never pick up a political pamphlet. The plays in this collection are short and direct, with clear heroes and villains drawn along class lines. They lack the depth and detail of his best novels, but they show how seriously he took the job of reaching people through every medium available to him. For readers already familiar with Sinclair’s fiction and non-fiction, Plays of Protest fills in another corner of his enormous body of work.