Deconstructing the Left: From Vietnam to the Clinton Era

by Peter Collier, David Horowitz

All over the world Marxism is a bankrupt political force, but not on American campuses where socialist fantasies and anti-American impulses are alive and well. On the faculties of American universities the reign of 'tenured radicals' and the 'politically correct' continues unbroken. "Deconstructing the Left" is a powerful challenge to this radical orthodoxy by ex-radicals Peter Collier and David Horowitz. Collier and Horowitz, best-selling authors of "The Rockefellers" and "The Kennedys," have been called "our premier chroniclers of American dynastic tragedy" by the "Los Angeles Times." But Collier and Horowitz have long worn another hat as political journalists, writing insightful and provocative analyses of left-wing movements like the Black Panthers and the Weather Underground. Their recent book of "second thoughts," "Destructive Generation," was hailed by "The Washington Post" as "the most powerful and anti-Communist polemic since Whittaker Chambers' "Witness"). In the 1960s, they edited the New Left magazine "Ramparts" and were active in the movement to oppose America's role in the Vietnam War and other radical protests. Twenty years later, they wrote a celebrated article in "The Washington Post" magazine (included in this volume) in which they said "goodbye" to their political "to the self-aggrandizing romance with corrupt Third Worldism; to the casual indulgence of Soviet totalitarianism; to the hypocritical and self-dramatizing anti-Americanism which is the New Left's bequest to mainstream politics." "Deconstructing the Left" is a collection of vintage Collier and Horowitz polemics and broadsides on radical student politics, the Vietnam War, Fidel Castro, the Sandinistas, Angela Davis, Jane Fonda, AIDs, McCarthyism, left-wing racism, radical ecology and the Persian Gulf.

275 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1991

About the author

Founder of Encounter Books in California, Collier was publisher from 1998-2005. He co-founded the Center for the Study of Popular Culture with David Horowitz. Collier wrote many books and articles with Horowitz. Collier worked on the website FrontpageMag. He was an organizer of Second Thoughts conferences for leftists who have moved right.

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Reviews

[L Gregory Lott · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent book for understanding the "new left" back in the latter part of the 20th century. However, it also helps explain what is happening in our country today, and how the leftist-Marxists have undermined our educational system; and the current state of our society today. To get a handle on things read this book; however, make sure you get the third edition published in 1995 and not the one listed here on good reads.