A groundbreaking history of Europe's "new lefts," from the antifascist 1920s to the anti-establishment 1960s In the 1960s, the radical youth of Western Europe's New Left rebelled against the democratic welfare state and their parents' antiquated politics of reform. It was not the first time an upstart leftist movement was built on the ruins of the old. This book traces the history of neoleftism from its antifascist roots in the first half of the twentieth century, to its postwar reconstruction in the 1950s, to its explosive reinvention by the 1960s counterculture. Terence Renaud demonstrates why the left in Europe underwent a series of internal revolts against the organizational forms of established parties and unions. He describes how small groups of militant youth such as New Beginning in Germany tried to sustain grassroots movements without reproducing the bureaucratic, hierarchical, and supposedly obsolete structures of Social Democracy and Communism. Neoleftist militants experimented with alternative modes of organization such as councils, assemblies, and action committees. However, Renaud reveals that these same militants, decades later, often came to defend the very institutions they had opposed in their youth. Providing vital historical perspective on the challenges confronting leftists today, this book tells the story of generations of antifascists, left socialists, and anti-authoritarians who tried to build radical democratic alternatives to capitalism and kindle hope in reactionary times.
' In contrast to most other accounts of this subject, the SDS and white male radicals are taken out of the center of the story and placed more toward its margins.
Todd Gitlin describes Dorhn as combining " lawyerly articulateness with a sexual charisma —even more than her chorus line looks — that left men dazzled " ( Gitlin , The Sixties , 385-86 ) ; Poole , interview ; Wright , interview . 36.
The Rise of a New Left gets behind the headlines about AOC and her cohort of elected officials to tell the stories of the young organizers who created the Squad and the new social movements that have roiled US politics, from the DSA to the ...
The New Left: A Collection of Essays
In his latest publication, William L. O'Neill presents a concise critical history of the New Left, the thinking, people, and events that helped shape the 1960s in America, and its...
Wini Breines traces the evolution of the New Left movement through the Free Speech Movement, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), and SDS's community organization projects.
Apart from evoking memories of past peace and freedom struggles from those who worked on the social movements of the 1960s, this work also includes a number of essays from a rising generation of scholars, too young to have experienced the ...
Thinkers of the New Left
This book examines the underground Liberation News Service and the commune Montague Farm to trace the evolution of the New Left after 1968.
The People of This Generation is the first comprehensive case study of the history of the New Left in a Northeast urban environment.