Comments about The Jungle as a depressive work miss its soul and message badly. This work truly changed the course of history. It led to massive improvement in working conditions and, eventually, to a special antitrust law designed to protect the nation's cattlemen and other meat producers from the then-wicked Beef Trust.<br> Sinclair courageously braved a concealed world to expose it. Pres Roosevelt was so moved by the book that he summoned Sinclair to the White House, and made worker's conditions and antitrust enforcement major aspects of his final years in office.<br> This book is not intended to be uplifting. Its purpose is to provoke deep thought.