Strawberry Statement Analysis

James Simon Kunen and The Strawberry Statement
The year 1968 was a year to be remembered: a time of war and a draft, assassinations, and protests and riots about all of the above. Being a sophomore at Columbia University, James Simon Kunen exemplified lots of radical and democratic views both protesting at the university and expressing them in his first book, The Strawberry Statement: Notes of a College Revolutionary written in 1969. With all of the things that Kunen has done with his life, his first book is still perhaps his best and most moving piece.
James Simon Kunen was born on September 23, 1948 in Boston, Massachusetts. Growing up in Massachusetts he attended Phillip Academy Andover before attending college at Columbia University (Kunen).
After graduating college, Kunen worked for True magazine where he was sent to Vietnam as a journalist. After seeing the hardships and witnessing the war, he wrote his second book Standard Operating Procedure: Notes of a Draft-Age American (“James S. Kunen”). Upon returning to the United States, Kunen pursued his juris doctoral degree from New York University School of Law. He joined the Public Defender Service in Washington D.C. where he handled cases ranking from minor offenses and misdemeanors to felonies and murder charges. After years in the field he wrote How Can You Defend Those People? The Making of a Criminal Lawyer (“James S. Kunen”). When Kunen decided to make his debut
This book was written on napkins, cigarette packs, and hitchhiking signs so Kunen