From the Critics
Bill is more participant than bystander in many of these stories, but his style, underscored with humility, beckons us to view our past in clearer terms.
Donald G. Evans
Author, Editor, and Founding Executive Director of the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame
Rockets & Riots is a testament as to how lawyers find themselves in the vortex of events that define an era….fascinating reflections.
Gary T. Johnson
Chairman of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum Board of Trustees and former President of the Chicago History Museum
An entertaining and intriguing exploration of critical events that helped shape the United States in the 1960s and 1970s.
Dr. Edward Gordon
Distinguished Lecturer for the Organization of American Historians who has taught at Northwestern, DePaul, and Loyola Universities.
Shortly after the publication on Amazon of my memoir Riots & Rockets, the distinguished Chicago Tribune columnist Rick Kogan asked me to join him in talking about the book on his WGN-720 AM radio show.
Photos from the Book
Riots & Rockets: A Dash of the Army, A Dose of Politics, and a Life in the Law by William J. Bowe is a memoir that reflects on significant historical forces in America, spanning from the 1960s to the Digital Age, through the lens of the author’s diverse career experiences. The book is a collection of five stories covering the author’s time as an Army counterintelligence analyst, a political activist, and a general counsel for major corporations.
Key Events and Experience
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Army Counterintelligence: The title “Riots & Rockets” comes from the first story, where Bowe served at the Pentagon as an analyst during the Vietnam War era. He assessed the potential for domestic peacekeeping missions amid widespread racial unrest and antiwar protests (the “Riots”) and analyzed security threats to the country’s anti-ballistic missile system (the “Rockets”).
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Chicago Politics: After his military service, Bowe became politically active in Chicago in the 1970s, working to challenge Mayor Richard J. Daley’s political machine and witnessing the election of the city’s first woman and first African American mayors.
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Legal Career: Bowe’s legal career included advising on the early organization of the MacArthur Foundation and working as the general counsel for United Press International (UPI) and Encyclopaedia Britannica. At Britannica, he helped lead the company’s transition from print to digital, including pioneering a multimedia search system that was a precursor to modern internet search.
The book uses these personal experiences to provide an intriguing exploration of critical events that helped shape the United States during this tumultuous period. You can purchase your copy of Riots & Rockets on Amazon. There is more information about the author and Riots & Rockets on the author’s official website www.wbowe.com.
