Zaretsky Why America Needs a Left

A Historical Argument
1. Auflage 2013
ISBN: 978-0-7456-7419-3
Verlag: John Wiley & Sons
Format: PDF
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 140 Seiten, E-Book

The United States today cries out for a robust, self-respecting,intellectually sophisticated left, yet the very idea of a leftappears to have been discredited. In this brilliant new book, EliZaretsky rethinks the idea by examining three key moments inAmerican history: the Civil War, the New Deal and the range of NewLeft movements in the 1960s and after including the civil rightsmovement, the women's movement and gay liberation.In each period,he argues, the active involvement of the left - especially itscritical interaction with mainstream liberalism - provedindispensable. American liberalism, as represented by theDemocratic Party, is necessarily spineless and ineffective withouta left. Correspondingly, without a strong liberal center, the leftbecomes sectarian, authoritarian, and worse.
Written in an accessible way for the general reader and theundergraduate student, this book provides a fresh perspective onAmerican politics and political history. It has often been saidthat the idea of a left originated in the French Revolution and isdistinctively European; Zaretsky argues, by contrast, that Americahas always had a vibrant and powerful left. And he shows that inthose critical moments when the country returns to itself, it is onits left/liberal bases that it comes to feel most at home.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Zaretsky, Eli

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgments vii
Introduction: America's Three Great Crises and Three Lefts1
1 Abolitionism and Racial Equality 16
2 The Popular Front and Social Equality 57
3 The New Left and Participatory Democracy 100
Conclusion: The American Left Today 159
Notes 171
Index 194

Über Autor(innen)

EliZaretsky is a Professor of History at the New York School forSocial Research