Rethinking the New Left

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-x

   PDF

2. Defining the New Left

   • Van Gosse

   Pages 1-8

3. America in the 1950s: “The Best of All Possible Worlds”

   • Van Gosse

   Pages 9-18

4. The New Left’s Origins in the Old Left

   • Van Gosse

   Pages 19-29

5. The Black Freedom Struggle: From “We Shall Overcome” to “Freedom Now!”

   • Van Gosse

   Pages 31-52

6. Challenging the Cold War Before Vietnam: “Ban the Bomb! Fair Play for Cuba!”

   • Van Gosse

   Pages 53-62

7. The Northern Student Movement: “Free Speech” and “Participatory Democracy”

   • Van Gosse

   Pages 63-72

8. Underground Feminists and Homophiles: “The Problems that Have No Name”

   • Van Gosse

   Pages 73-83

9. Vietnam and “The War at Home”

   • Van Gosse

   Pages 85-109

10. Black Power: “A Nation Within a Nation?”

    • Van Gosse

    Pages 111-129

11. Red, Brown, and Yellow Power in “Occupied America”

    • Van Gosse

    Pages 131-151

12. Women’s Liberation and Second-Wave Feminism: “The Personal is Political”

    • Van Gosse

    Pages 153-170

13. Gay Liberation: “Out of the Closets and into the Streets!”

    • Van Gosse

    Pages 171-185

14. Winning and Losing: The New Left Democratizes America

    • Van Gosse

    Pages 187-210

15. Back Matter

    Pages 211-240

    PDF

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.

• American politics
• civil rights
• Cold War
• Contras
• democracy
• liberty
• politics
• Protest
• USA

Choice Outstanding Academic Title 2006

VAN GOSSE is Assistant Professor of History at Franklin and Marshall College, Pennsylvania, USA.