This book examines the underground Liberation News Service and the commune Montague Farm to trace the evolution of the New Left after 1968. In the process, it extends the chronological breadth of the long Sixties, rethinks the relationship between political and cultural radicalism, and explores the relationships between diverse social movements.

This book examines the underground Liberation News Service and the commune Montague Farm to trace the evolution of the New Left after 1968. In the process, it extends the chronological breadth of the long Sixties, rethinks the relationship between political and cultural radicalism, and explores the relationships between diverse social movements.

Gosse, one of the foremost historians of the American postwar left, has crafted an engaging and concise synthetic history of the varied movements and organizations that have been placed under the broad umbrella known as the New Left. As one reader notes, gosse 'has accomplished something difficult and rare, if not altogether unique, in providing a studied and moving account of the full array of protest movements - from civil rights and Black Power, to student and antiwar protest, to women's and gay liberation, to Native American, Asian American, and Puerto Rican activism - that defined the American sixties as an era of powerfully transformative rebellions...His is a 'big-tent' view that shows just how rich and varied 1960s protest was.' 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. A prestigious project from a highly respected historian, The New Left in the United States, 1955-1975 will be a must-read for anyone interested in American politics of the postwar era.

Did New Left activists have an opportunity to start a revolution that they simply could not bring off? Was their rejection of conventional forms of political organization a fatal flaw or were the apparent weaknesses of the movement -- the lack of central authority, the distrust of politics -- actually hidden strengths? 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. For Breines, the movement's goal of participatory decision-making, even when it was not achieved, made up for its failure to take practical and direct action. By the late 1960s, antiwar activism contributed to the decline of the New Left, as the movement was flooded with new participants who did not share the founding generation's political experiences or values. Originally published in 1982, Wini Breines's classic work now includes a new preface in which she reassesses, and for the most part affirms, her initial views of the movement. She argues that the movement remains effective in the midst of radical changes in activist movements. Breines also summarizes and evaluates the new and growing scholarship on the 1960s. Her provocative analysis of the New Left remains important today.

"The Imagination of the New Left" brings to life the social movements and events of the 1960s that made it a period of world-historical importance: the Prague Spring; the student movements in Mexico, Japan, Sri Lanka, Italy, Yugoslavia, and Spain; the Test Offensive in Vietnam and guerilla movements in Latin America; the Democratic Convention in Chicago; the assassination of Martin Luther King; the near-revolution in France of May 1968; and the May 1970 student strike in the United States. Despite its apparent failure, the New Left represented a global transition to a newly defined cultural and political epoch, and its impact continues to be felt today.

The greatest contribution of the New Left of the 1960s was its determination to build a culture and politics of popular participation at every level of society. A radical conception of democracy, it inspired the movements for civil rights, for peace and solidarity, and for gender and sexual equality. It framed the social debate, in terms of community-centered democratic theory, which continues to guide and inspire well into the twenty-first century. As the contributors to this anthology revisit the 1960s to identify its ongoing impact on North American politics and culture, it becomes evident how this legacy has blended with and influenced today’s worldwide social movements, in particular, the anti-globalization movement and the Right to the City movement. The successes and failures of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) as they struggle for a voice at global levels are examined, as are the new movements of the urban disenfranchised-the homeless, the alienated youth, the elderly poor. 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 1960s firsthand, whose perspective as non-participants enables them to offer fresh interpretations. Dimitrios Roussopoulos, a prominent New Left activist in the 1960s, continues to write and edit on major international issues while being a committed activist, testing theory with practice.

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. Reflecting the diversity of goals, the clashes of opinions, and the tumult of the time, these essays will engage seasoned scholars as well as students of the '60s.