Why America Needs a Left

Why America Needs a LeftCondition: BRAND NEW ISBN: 9780745644844 Year: 2012 Publisher: John Wiley & Sons (UK) Pages: 224 Description: The United States today cries out for a robust, self respecting, intellectually sophisticated left, yet the very idea of a left appears to have been discredited. In this brilliant new book, Eli Zaretsky rethinks the idea by examining three key moments in American history: the Civil War, the New Deal and the range of New Left movements in the

Condition: BRAND NEW
ISBN: 9780745644844
Year: 2012
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons (UK)
Pages: 224


Description:
The United States today cries out for a robust, self-respecting,
intellectually sophisticated left, yet the very idea of a left
appears to have been discredited. In this brilliant new book, Eli
Zaretsky rethinks the idea by examining three key moments in
American history: the Civil War, the New Deal and the range of New
Left movements in the 1960s and after including the civil rights
movement, the women's movement and gay liberation.In each period,
he argues, the active involvement of the left - especially its
critical interaction with mainstream liberalism - proved
indispensable. American liberalism, as represented by the
Democratic Party, is necessarily spineless and ineffective without
a left. Correspondingly, without a strong liberal center, the left
becomes sectarian, authoritarian, and worse.


Written in an accessible way for the general reader and the
undergraduate student, this book provides a fresh perspective on
American politics and political history. It has often been said
that the idea of a left originated in the French Revolution and is
distinctively European; Zaretsky argues, by contrast, that America
has always had a vibrant and powerful left. And he shows that in
those critical moments when the country returns to itself, it is on
its left/liberal bases that it comes to feel most at home.