Upton Sinclair's novel of the California oil industry — following a oil magnate's son who moves from privilege to socialism as he understands the exploitation on which his father's wealth rests.
The California oil boom as the subject: Sinclair draws on the Teapot Dome scandal (1921) and the rise of the oil industry. The moral education of Bunny Ross: a socialist Bildungsroman in which the protagonist gradually understands the systemic exploitation behind wealth. Less famous than The Jungle but arguably more sophisticated: the class dynamics more fully developed, the characters more complex.
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