Ronald Radosh's earliest memory is of being trundled off to May Day celebrations by his communist parents with a Soviet flag stuck in his baby carriage. Then came education at New York's ''little red schoolhouse.'' Summers at ''commie camp.'' And college at the University of Wisconsin where he became a founding father of the New Left. Commies is a brilliant memoir of growing up in the culture of radicalism. But it also about the hard decisions faced by those professing a radical faith. For Radosh himself, the crisis came when he concluded in his authoritative book on Julius and Ethel Rosenberg that the couple (on whose behalf he had demonstrated as a boy) had indeed been guilty of spying. Attacked as a ''traitor,'' Radosh began to question his political commitments. His disillusionment climaxed in the 1980s when he traveled through Central America as a journalist and historian and ran into his old comrades there still searching for the revolution. One journalist calls Ronald Radosh ''the Zelig of the American Left, seen everywhere and knowing everyone.'' Humorous and tragic, filled with anecdote and personality, Commies is a trip log of his journey, the most intimate look yet at the experience of a radical generation.

Faced with an accusation from the US Army's highest legal authority in 1952, Grossman left his unit stationed in Bavaria and swam the Danube to East Germany. He traces his childhood and experiences as a student, worker, and soldier; then describes life in his new home among a surprisingly large community of defectors. There is no index. Annotation (c)2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).

The first biography of Helena Sheehan, Irish-American Marxist feminist activist Why would an American girl-child, born into a good, Irish-Catholic family in the thick of the McCarthy era – a girl who, when she came of age, entered a convent – morph into an atheist, feminist, and Marxist? The answer is in Helena Sheehan’s fascinating account of her journey from her 1940s and 1950s beginnings, into the turbulent 1960s, when the Vietnam War, black power, and women’s liberation rocked her bedrock assumptions and prompted a volley of life-upending questions – questions shared by millions of young people of her generation. But, for Helena Sheehan, the increasingly radicalized answers deepened through the following decades. Beginning by overturning such certainties as America-is-the-world’s-greatest-country and the-Church-is-infallible, Sheehan went on to embrace existentialism, philosophical pragmatism, the new left, and eventually Marxism. Migrating from the United States to Ireland, she became involved with Irish republicanism and international communism in the 1970s and 1980s. Sheehan’s narrative vividly captures the global sweep and contradictions of second-wave feminism, antiwar activism, national liberation movements, and international communism in Eastern and Western Europe – as well as the quieter intellectual ferment of individuals living through these times. Navigating the Zeitgeist is an eloquently articulated voyage from faith to enlightenment to historical materialism that informs as well as entertains. This is the story of a well-lived political and philosophical life, told by a woman who continues to interrogate her times.

The women most crucial to the feminist movement that emerged in the 1960's arrived at their commitment and consciousness in response to the unexpected and often shattering experience of having their work minimized, even disregarded, by the men they considered to be their colleagues and fellow crusaders in the civil rights and radical New Left movements. On the basis of years of research, interviews with dozens of the central figures, and her own personal experience, Evans explores how the political stance of these women was catalyzed and shaped by their sharp disillusionment at a time when their skills as political activists were newly and highly developed, enabling them to join forces to support their own cause.

"In Charles Haynie's autobiography we get a rare look into the development of a great social movement through the quietly dramatic experiences of a rank-and-file member of that movement. This is valuable social history, but more important, Charles Haynie's life is an inspiration for a new generation." --Howard Zinn Charles Haynie's life as an activist and organizer began while he was a graduate student at Cornell University. Young, fiercely intelligent, and spirited, Haynie had a political awakening during the early antinuclear movement in the late 1950s. It was the beginning of a long career of tireless fighting for social justice--a career that Haynie himself compellingly describes in A Memoir of the New Left. From 1963 to 1965, Haynie was field director for a voter registration project in Tennessee. In 1967 he worked with Massachusetts Political Action for Peace as an organizer of antiwar delegations in all twelve congressional districts of the state. Haynie also ran for a Buffalo Common Council seat in 1979 and helped organize the Buffalo Unity Day rally to ease racial tensions. During his most intense period of political activism, Haynie helped organize, participated in, and was arrested during the Freedom Rides in which scores of civil rights protesters rode buses throughout the segregated South. Later, he participated in a variety of intentional communities designed to educate and support oppressed minorities in rural and urban areas. He died in 2001. Unlike other histories of the American left, which tend to celebrate famous personalities, Haynie's memoir focuses on how ordinary citizens become politicized. In the process, this account raises questions about the nature of democracy and how political change occurs. Written in an engaging, reflective, often humorous style, Haynie examines how his political awakening both disrupted and enriched his personal life. Aeron Haynie, the daughter of Charles Haynie, is associate professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. She is the coeditor, with Pamela Gilbert and Marlene Tromp, of Mary Elizabeth Braddon in Context and the coeditor, with Regan Gurung and Nancy Chick, of Exploring Signature Pedagogies. Timothy S. Miller lives in Dallas, Texas with his wife and daughter. He's been a ranch-hand, waiter, contract driver, professional clown and spent ten years in global wealth management. Douglas Dowd was a longtime professor at Cornell University before his retirement. An economic historian and political activist, his most recent books include Capitalism and Its Economics: A Critical History and Understanding Capitalism: Critical Analysis from Karl Marx to Amatya Sen.

The bestselling Unholy Alliance-now in paperback! Former Leftist radical David Horowitz blows the lid off the dangerous liaison between U.S. liberals and Islamic radicals. With America's battle against the disastrous force of terrorism at hand, Horowitz takes us behind the curtain of the unholy alliance between liberals and the enemy-a force with malevolent intentions, and one that Americans can no longer ignore.

A warm, heartfelt memoir of family, loss, and a house jam-packed with decades of goods and memories. After almost twenty years of caring for elderly parents—first for their senile father, and then for their cantankerous ninety-three-year old mother—author Plum Johnson and her three younger brothers have finally fallen to their middle-aged knees with conflicted feelings of grief and relief. Now they must empty and sell the beloved family home, twenty-three rooms bulging with history, antiques, and oxygen tanks. Plum thought: How tough will that be? I know how to buy garbage bags. But the task turns out to be much harder and more rewarding than she ever imagined. Items from childhood trigger difficult memories of her eccentric family growing up in the 1950s and ’60s, but unearthing new facts about her parents helps her reconcile those relationships, with a more accepting perspective about who they were and what they valued. They Left Us Everything is a funny, touching memoir about the importance of preserving family history to make sense of the past, and nurturing family bonds to safeguard the future.