Includes bibliographical references (pages [413]-421) and index.

"When the state of Massachusetts electrocuted Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti on August 23, 1927, it concluded one of the most controversial legal cases in American history. In the eight decades since, debate has raged about the fate of the Italian immigrants said to have been railroaded for the murders of two payroll clerks. Were they innocent? Guilty? Was one guilty and the other innocent? Was justice served, or was justice "crucified"?" "In this first full-length narrative of the case in thirty years, Bruce Watson unwinds a tale that opens with anarchist bombs going off in a posh Washington, D.C., neighborhood and concludes with worldwide outrage over the fates of these two men. The true story of one of the nation's most infamous trials and executions, Sacco and Vanzetti mines deep archives and new sources, unveiling fresh details and fleshing out the two men as naive dreamers and militant revolutionaries. It is the most complete history of a case that still haunts the American imagination."-JACKET.