Daniel Soyer's history of the Liberal Party of New York State, Left in the Center, shows the surprising relationship between Democratic Socialism and mainstream American politics. Beginning in 1944 and lasting until 2002, the Liberal Party offered voters an ideological seal of approval and played the role of strategic kingmaker in the electoral politics of New York State. The party helped elect presidents, governors, senators, and mayors, and its platform reflected its founders' social democratic principles. In practical politics, the Liberal Party's power resided in its capacity to steer votes to preferred Democrats or Republicans with a reasonable chance of victory. This uneasy balance between principle and pragmatism, which ultimately proved impossible to maintain, is at the heart of the dramatic political story presented in Left in the Center. The Liberal Party, the longest-lived of New York's small parties, began as a means for anti-Communist social democrats to have an impact on the politics and policy of New York City, Albany, and Washington, DC. It provided a political voice for labor activists, independent liberals, and pragmatic social democrats. Although the party devolved into what some saw as a cynical patronage machine, it remained a model for third-party power and for New York's influential Conservative and, later, the Working Families parties. With an active period ranging from the successful senatorial career of Jacob Javits to the mayoralties of John Lindsay and Rudy Giuliani, the Liberal Party effectively shaped the politics and policy of New York. The practical gains and political cost of that complicated trade-off is at the heart of Left in the Center.

Histories of American radical left groups abound. The Communist party, the tiny Trotskyist movement, and the New Left have all been abundantly chronicled. Very little information has been available, however, about the radical left today. "Far Left of Center "remedies that deficit. Many people erroneously assume that with the collapse of the New Left in the early 1970s, American radicalism disappeared. It is true that the 1980s have not been good years for radicals. Their ideologies, particularly Marxism-Leninism, have been discredited, their tactics and visions have been repudiated, and they have been plagued by internal problems. Even so, the history of American radicalism suggests that such movements have rebounded in the past; and in any event, Marxist-Leninist groups have often had an impact far out of proportion to their size. Part One deals with the Communist party of the United States, the largest and most influential Marxist-Leninist group in the United States. Its membership is only about 15,000, but it has been growing steadily in recent years. This section also discusses a variety of front groups which the party has created to facilitate work and to garner support from people who would not otherwise cooperate with Communists. Part Two deals with Trotskyist, Maoist, and other Marxist-Leninist organizations in the United States. Far more militant than the CPUSA, these sects are usually quite small, often under a thousand members. They include the tiny offshoots of the New Left. Part Three deals with organizations that eschew formal ties to Marxist-Leninist parties and are not under the control of these parties, although they may work with them toward some of the same objectives. Many of these have especially targeted Israel as a danger to world peace and security. They are also hostile to American foreign policy and support Marxist revolutionary regimes abroad. The basic premise of "Far Left of Center "is that these far-left groups support and defend oppressive and totalitarian regimes, and cooperate with those dedicated to the destruction of democracy and intellectual freedom. The author is careful to distinguish these groups from democratic socialists in the United States, who have vigorously and continuously denounced Marxism-Leninism and those regimes founded on its principles. This book is not about these organizations. The focus is, instead, on groups whose denunciations of American society and political life go hand-in-hand with testimonials to some of the most repressive regimes in the world. Klehr has written a sober, well documented, comprehensive account of the radical left in the United States today.

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.

The year 1996 in Italian politics was a year rich in novelty. After the "stalled transition" of 1995, the political atmosphere had begun to change. Most obvious was the end of Dini's unelected government of technocrats, supported by a heterogeneous group in Parliament, and its replacement with Romano Prodi's government, a coalition of the parties that had won the general election on April 21, 1996. But an even more important change and one more likely to be remembered was a new climate of dialogue amongst the main political forces that emerged from this period of transition between two republics. In 1996, despite the general elections, cooperation again became part of the political game.

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: NEWSWEEK/THE DAILY BEAST, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE PROGRESSIVE The definitive history of the reformers, radicals, and idealists who fought for a different America, from the abolitionists to Michael Moore and Noam Chomsky. While the history of the left is a long story of idealism and determination, it has also been a story of movements that failed to gain support from mainstream America. In American Dreamers, Michael Kazin—one of the most respected historians of the American left working today—tells a new history of the movements that, while not fully succeeding on their own terms, nonetheless made lasting contributions to American society. Among these culture shaping events are the fight for equal opportunity for women, racial minorities, and homosexuals; the celebration of sexual pleasure; the inclusion of multiculturalism in the media and school curricula; and the creation of books and films with altruistic and anti-authoritarian messages. Deeply informed, judicious and impassioned, and superbly written, this is an essential book for our times and for anyone seeking to understand our political history and the people who made it.

Enough of the imbalance that is causing the degradation of our environment, the demise of our democracies, and the denigration of ourselves. Enough of the pendulum politics of left and right and paralysis in the political center. We require an unprecedented form of radical renewal. In this book Henry Mintzberg offers a new understanding of the root of our current crisis and a strategy for restoring the balance so vital to the survival of our progeny and our planet. With the collapse of the communist regimes of Eastern Europe, Western pundits declared that capitalism had triumphed. They were wrong—balance triumphed. A healthy society balances a public sector of respected governments, a private sector of responsible businesses, and a plural sector of robust communities. Communism collapsed under the weight of its overbearing public sector. Now the “liberal democracies” are threatened—socially, politically, even economically—by the unchecked excesses of the private sector. Radical renewal will have to begin in the plural sector, which alone has the inclination and the independence to challenge unacceptable practices and develop better ones. Too many governments have been co-opted by the private sector. And corporate social responsibility can't compensate for the corporate social irresponsibility we see around us “They” won't do it. We shall have to do it, each of us and all of us, not as passive “human resources,” but as resourceful human beings. Tom Paine wrote in 1776, “We have it in our power to begin the world over again.” He was right then. Can we be right again now? Can we afford not to be?