In 1963, just weeks before the original publication of this book, the last prisoner was escorted off Devil’s Island and Alcatraz ceased to be a prison. Author J. Campbell Bruce chronicles in spellbinding detail the Rock’s transition from a Spanish fort to the maximum-security penitentiary that housed such infamous inmates as Robert Stroud, aka the Birdman of Alcatraz, and mobster Al “Scarface” Capone. The chapters describing the daring escape attempts by Frank Morris and two accomplices from this “inescapable” prison became the basis for the 1979 Clint Eastwood movie. Discover the intriguing and absorbing saga of Alcatraz, whose name is still synonymous with punitive isolation and deprivation, where America’s most violent and notorious prisoners resided in tortuous proximity to one of the world’s favorite cities.

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In addition to authoring ESCAPE FROM ALCATRAZ in 1963 and The Golden Door: The Irony of Our Immigration Policy in 1954, J. CAMPBELL BRUCE was a noted feature writer for the San Francisco Chronicle, a lecturer, and a regular contributor to national magazines. J. Campbell Bruce died in 1996.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

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