Guthrie was essentially a product of the Slump Thirties and of the grim Forties, a figure of American social radicalism at a time when the underdog looked like going under and being trampled on by the big feet of High Finance. He was from Oklahoma, then still a semi-wild region, and from the start he was a roamer, and a natural-born balladeer. Guthrie's social conscience was genuine - at one stage he was in trouble with the law as a suspected Communist - and his songs of protest and anger spoke to and for the underprivileged, at a time when American society was under severe internal strain. His marriage did not survive his nomadic habits, and his later years were plagued by psychological and physical illness, although he became a hero to men of a new generation such as Bob Dylan and Pete Seeger. This book portrays an entire epoch as well as a significant folk musician.