The Chicano Movement of the 1960s and ’70s, like so much of the period’s politics, is best known for its radicalism: militancy, distrust of mainstream institutions, demands for rapid change. Less understood, yet no less significant in its aims, actions, and impact, was the movement’s moderate elements. In the Midst of Radicalism presents the first full account of these more mainstream liberal activists—those who rejected the politics of protest and worked within the system to promote social change for the Mexican American community. The radicalism of the Chicano Movement marked a sharp break from the previous generation of Mexican Americans. Even so, historian Guadalupe San Miguel Jr. contends, the first-generation agenda of moderate social change persisted. His book reveals how, even in the ferment of the ’60s and ’70s, Mexican American moderates used conventional methods to expand access to education, electoral politics, jobs, and mainstream institutions. Believing in the existing social structure, though not the status quo, they fought in the courts, at school board meetings, as lobbyists and advocates, and at the ballot box. They did not mount demonstrations, but in their own deliberate way, they chipped away at the barriers to their communities’ social acceptance and economic mobility. Were these men and women pawns of mainstream political leaders, or were they true to the Mexican American community, representing its diverse interests as part of the establishment? San Miguel explores how they contributed to the struggle for social justice and equality during the years of radical activism. His book assesses their impact and how it fit within the historic struggle for civil rights waged by others since the early 1900s. In the Midst of Radicalism for the first time shows us these moderate Mexican American activists as they were—playing a critical role in the Chicano Movement while maintaining a long-standing tradition of pursuing social justice for their community.

Concentrated in states outside the Northeast and the South, state-level third-party radical politics has been more widespread than many realize. In the 1920s and 1930s, American political organizations strong enough to mount state-wide campaigns, and often capable of electing governors and members of Congress, emerged not only in Minnesota but in Wisconsin and Washington, in Oklahoma and Idaho, and in several other states. Richard M. Valelly treats in detail the political economy of the Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party (1918-1944), the most successful radical, state-level party in American history. With the aid of numerous interviews of surviving organizers and participants in the party's existence, Valelly recreates the party's rise to power and subsequent decline, seeking answers to some broad, developmental questions. Why did this type of politics arise, and why did it collapse when it did? What does the party's history tell us about national political change? The answers lie, Valelly argues, in America's transition from the political economy of the 1920s to the New Deal. Combining case study and comparative state politics, he reexamines America's political economy prior to the New Deal and the scope and ironies of the New Deal's reorganization of American politics. The results compellingly support his argument that the federal government's increasing intervention in the economy profoundly transformed state politics. The interplay between national economy policy-making and federalism eventually reshaped the dynamics of interest-group politics and closed off the future of "state-level radicalism." The strength of this argument is highlighted by Valelly's cross-national comparison with Canadian politics. In vivid contrast to the fate of American movements, "province level radicalism" thrived in the Canadian political environment. In the course of analyzing one of the "supressed alternatives" of American politics, Valelly illuminates the influence of the national political economy on American political development. Radicalism in the States will interest students of economic protest, of national policy-making, of interest-group politics and party politics.

This text reveals the importance of radicalism's links to pre-industrial culture and attachments to place and local communities, as well the ways in which journalists who had been pushed out of 'respectable' politics connected to artisans and other workers.

John Boyer offers a meticulously researched examination of the social and political atmosphere of late imperial Vienna. He traces the demise of Vienna's liberal culture and the burgeoning of a new radicalism, exemplified by the rise of Karl Lueger and the Christian Socialist Party during the latter half of the nineteenth century. This important study paves the way for new readings of fin de siecle Viennese politics and their broader European significance. "Offers a comprehensive, multicausal study of the rise of Christian Socialism in Vienna, that phenomenon which was experienced nowhere else in urban Central Europe and which culminated in the famous clash between the Austrian establishment and the colourful, domineering lead of the movement, Karl, Lueger."—R.J.W. Evans, History "Boyer's analysis is masterful in terms of research, exposition, and organization. His use of available economic data is judicious, and his sense of the social structure of late nineteenth-century Vienna is formidable."—William A. Jenks, American Historical Review "To understand Viennese and even imperial politics in the latter half of the nineteenth century, Boyer's book is absolutely essential.""—Robert Wegs, Review of Politics

"Senior co-administrator of the Norcoast Salmon Research Facility, Dr. Mackenzie Connor - Mac to her friends and colleagues - was a biologist who had wanted nothing more out of life than to study the spawning habits of salmon. But that was before she met Brymn, the first member of the Dhryn race ever to set foot on Earth. And it was before Base was attacked, and Mac's friend and fellow scientist Dr. Emily Mamani was kidnapped by the mysterious race known as the Ro." "From that moment on everything changed for Mac, for Emily, for Brymn, for the human race, and for all the many member races of the Interspecies Union." "Now, with the alien Dhryn following an instinct-driven migratory path through the inhabited spaceways - bringing about the annihilation of sentient races who have the misfortune to lie along the star trail they are following - time is running out not only for the human race but for all life forms." "And only Mac and her disparate band of researchers - drawn from many of the races that are members of the Interspecies Union - stand any chance of solving the deadly puzzle of the Dhryn and the equally enigmatic Ro."--BOOK JACKET.

“This country's leading hell-raiser" (The Nation) shares his impassioned counsel to young radicals on how to effect constructive social change and know “the difference between being a realistic radical and being a rhetorical one.” First published in 1971 and written in the midst of radical political developments whose direction Alinsky was one of the first to question, this volume exhibits his style at its best. Like Thomas Paine before him, Alinsky was able to combine, both in his person and his writing, the intensity of political engagement with an absolute insistence on rational political discourse and adherence to the American democratic tradition.

This work looks at the influence of radicalism on a crucial point in Vietnamese history. It reveals an era of student strikes, debates on women's emancipation, revolt against the patriarchal family and intellectual explorations of French and Chinese politics and thought.