Why America Needs a Left: A Historical Argument

by Eli Zaretsky

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.

Genres: Politics

206 pages, Hardcover

First published November 20, 2011

Reviews

[Bob H · Rating 4 out of 5]

A historical argument, indeed. Mr. Zaretsky goes through the history of the left, through abolitionist times, the "Popular Front" -- the varied labor, Progressive, civil-rights, feminist and New Deal movements from the late 19th Century through FDR -- and finally the post-WWII movements culminating in the New Left. The narrative runs out about 1980, but showed us how these movements could grow, become diverse, and during a period like the New Deal, inform and lead social change. Maybe that's all the history the author needed, given the ascendancy of religious, economic and political conservatism since 1980, and what it engendered. He pretty much spells this out in a 10-page conclusion, that the varied leftist forces in America, today, "have to reaffirm their common identity as a left. The consolidation and clarification of identity is central to every founding."

The book is worthwhile in showing that this sort of reconsolidation took place before, and presumably can happen again. While, he shows, it can create a lot of social progress under a favorable regime -- Lincoln, the two Roosevelts -- the left needed to lay the groundwork, its preaching, organizing, and consolidating. Judging by the bibliographic notes, the argument is well-researched and cohesive, an accomplishment given the amount of history and social change the book covers in 170 pages. A succinct history of an enduring, if evolving, movement.