The New Left Revisited

Browse Return to Previous Page       Related Subjects All Subjects American History American Studies History Political Science/Sociology

Edited by John McMillian and Paul Buhle

Temple University Press

Due/Published January 2003, 312 pages, paper

ISBN 1566399769

Starting with the premise that it is possible to say something significantly new about the 1960s and the New Left, the contributors to this volume trace the social roots, the various paths, and the legacies of the movement that set out to change America. As members of a younger generation of scholars, none of them (apart from Paul Buhle) has first-hand knowledge of the era. Their perspective as non-participants enables them to offer fresh interpretations of the regional and ideological differences that have been obscured in the standard histories and memoirs of the period. These essays reflect the diversity of goals, the clashes of opinions, and the tumult of the time.

"This excellent collection of essays on the New Left helps mark the coming of age of a rising generation of scholars, too young to have experienced the 1960s but committed to bringing new scholarly questions to the study of the decade."--Alan Brinkley

Contents

Introduction – John McMillian

Part I: Local Studies, Local Personalities
1. "It Seemed Like a Very Local Affair": The 1960s Student Movement at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale – Robbie Lieberman and David Cochran
2. Between Despair and Hope: Studies on the Left and the Historical Legacy of the New Left – Kevin Mattson
3. Building the New South: The Southern Student Organizing Committee – Gregg Michel
4. The Black Freedom Struggle and White Resistance: A Case Study of the Civil Rights Movement inCambridge, Maryland – Peter Levy
5. Organizing from the Bottom Up: Lillian Craig, Dovie Thurman, and the New Left in the 1960s – Jennifer Frost
6. Death City Radicals: The Counterculture in the New Left in 1960s Los Angeles – David McBride

Part II: Ideological Reconsiderations
7. How New Was the New Left?: Re-Thinking New Left Exceptionalism – Andrew Hunt
8. Strategy and Democracy in the New Left – Francesca Polletta
9. The "Point of Ultimate Indignity" or a "Beloved Community"?: The Draft Resistance Movement and New Left Gender Dynamics – Michael S. Foley
10. Losing Our Kids: Queer Perspectives on the Chicago Seven Conspiracy Trial – Ian Lekus
11. Between Revolution 9 and Thesis 11: Or, Will We Learn (Again) to Start Worrying and Change the World? – Jeremy Varon
12. Letting Go: Revisiting the New Left's Demise – Doug Rossinow

Afterword – Paul Buhle
About the Contributors