"A deeply researched narrative of Nixon's mass arrest of the thousands of protesters who flooded the capital in the darkest days of the Vietnam War." —New York Times "It's impossible to read MAYDAY 1971 without thinking of our own recent summer of unrest -- and the autumn of discontent we face." ---Washington Post It was the largest act of civil disobedience in US history. They surged into Richard Nixon's Washington by the tens of thousands in spring 1971. Fiery radicals, flower children, and militant vets gathered for the most audacious act in a years-long movement to end America's war in Vietnam: a blockade of the nation's capital. And the White House, headed by an increasingly paranoid president, was determined to stop it. Washington journalist Lawrence Roberts, drawing on dozens of interviews, unexplored archives, and newfound White House transcripts, recreates these largely forgotten events through the eyes of dueling characters. Woven into the story too are now-familiar names including John Kerry, Jane Fonda, and Daniel Ellsberg, leaker of the Pentagon Papers. It began with a bombing inside the US Capitol—a still-unsolved case to which Roberts brings new information. To prevent the Mayday Tribe's guerrilla-style traffic blockade, the government mustered the military. Riot squads swept through the city, arresting more than 12,000 people. As a young female public defender led a thrilling legal battle to free the detainees, Nixon and his men took their first steps down the road to Watergate and the implosion of the presidency.   Mayday 1971 is the ultimately inspiring story of a season when our democracy faced grave danger, and survived. "Award-winning investigative reporter Lawrence Roberts tells the story superbly from start to finish... With a talent for research and an eye for colorful detail, Mr. Roberts presents a lot of new and overlooked material... Mayday has been paid less attention than other protests of the period, and its significance overlooked. Mr. Roberts' first-rate book redresses that imbalance." —Wall Street Journal "A deeply researched narrative of Nixon's mass arrest of the thousands of protesters who flooded the capital in the darkest days of the Vietnam War." — New York Times Book Review "A narrative that will engage readers of the time period and resonate with today's social justice activists."— Library Journal "A coherent, fast moving, and fascinating story." —Christian Science Monitor "It's impossible to read Mayday 1971 without thinking of our own recent summer of unrest — and the autumn of discontent we face."— Washington Post "A great read on this remarkable event." —Philadelphia Inquirer "Vivid and deeply sourced . . . Roberts convincingly argues that the White House's authoritarian attitudes and actions foreshadowed the Watergate scandal." — Publishers Weekly "A masterful chronicle. . .stirring. . .Such a book has been a long time coming." --CounterPunch "Perceptive, thoroughly researched . . . A vivid history of passionate protest."— Kirkus Reviews "A dramatic audiobook."— AudioFile Magazine "A page-turning narrative and a convincing argument about Mayday's historical significance."— Peace & Change journal "Relates the shameful story of what happened that year like a mystery writer." — Washington Independent Review of Books "A sterling job of both reporting the many and varied aspects of the demonstrations and analyzing their impact on the prosecution of the war and the fate of the Nixon administration." —The VVA Veteran "The events culminating with the mass arrests of 12,000 people in Washington, D.C., in the spring of 1971 have been curiously underreported in most histories of the Vietnam era. Roberts changes that with this compelling history."— Booklist "Roberts shows that Nixon and others in the White House were even more cynical in handling the arrests and the aftermath than the demonstrators imagined."— New York Journal of Books "An absolutely riveting account of all the action. He has a journalist's eye for fascinating details, and the extensive referencing and original interviews show he has done his research... there is plenty to interest peace activists working today... A real tour de force." — UK Peace News "A brilliant investigation of the tense days when war, democracy and law collided on the streets of Washington, Mayday 1971 brings it all back in vivid detail and riveting story-telling. Here is a real-life thriller that shows the strength of our society and our system, important lessons for today's turmoil." — David E. Hoffman , Pulitzer-prize winning author of The Dead Hand and The Billion Dollar Spy "Resonates today, when our democracy is again being challenged."— Larry Tye , New York Times-bestselling author of Demagogue Among 2020's "Most Anticipated Debut Books."— Library Journal LAWRENCE ROBERTS has been an investigative editor with ProPublica , the Washington Pos