With Kent State University a scant 5 miles from my house, it's hardly surprising that a signed first printing of this particular book. Many of my HS friends went on to college there, a close friend remembered the bullets flying passed his shoulders as he walked to class from his dorm a quarter mile above the killing ground. Me? I was attending the movie "Z" with some Oberlin friends in Cleveland, and we came out of the theater to see Jeeps with machine guns uncovered on the street, and news reports of two National Guard soldiers and two students killed in a gun fight on the Kent State campus.

Turned out to be "fake news": even then ambitious journalists opted for the sensation over the substance. Two of the students killed were wearing army surplus jackets. So was I, come to think of it, although I was no where near the incident.

An event, as landmark as the assassination of JFK or the felling of the Twin Towers. Few of us will ever forget where we were and what we were doing then.

So writing this book was probably pretty easy for Michener: students and faculty love to talk. The military campaign, such as it was, was easy enough to uncover. The events leading up to it: ROTC burnings and student "riots".

Michener was one of the most successful writers of his time. He died wealthy and philanthropic, endowing writer's prizes in Canada and the US. He has been draped with military honors, honored by the USPS and won some awards here and there, but none of the big three.

I am no autograph certifier. There are copious examples on the web, and this matches well the exemplars. If you aren't satisfied, please send it back for a full refund. The monogrammed stamp accompanying the signature is typical to other books he has signed. He has close ties with Hawaiian Japanese people and could have commissioned such a stamp. Other flatsigned images have similar red JAM stamps.

The book was rushed into print for the holiday season the year after the shootings. Michener was onsite researching for the better part of a year. The shootings (some call it a massacre but only 4 were killed) became a watershed moment in American History, galvanizing the youth of the Nation against their Government. 

The book remains controversial, in that it suggests that CIA/FBI infiltratrators and agitators were responsible for motivating the crowd to burn the ROTC buildings the nights before the shootings, which prompted the Governor to call out the National Guard to the campus. 

Michener donated the proceeds of this book to the University, endowing their Arts Collection. The building was finished in 1972. In 1974 Michener traveled to China as part of Nixon's Press Corps.