Monday, November 25, 2013

"The American Left"

New from Edinburgh and Oxford University Presses: The American Left: Its Impact on Politics and Society since 1900 by Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones.

About the book, from the publisher:
Only the American right has ever really recognised the potency of the American left. Now, Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones fully details the left's numerous achievements, including the welfare state, opposing militarism, reshaping of American culture, black rights and civil liberties, awakening the USA to the dangers of fascism and great public enterprises such as the late Twin Towers. Jones tells the full story of the US's left wing: how the socialists of the Old Left gave way by the 1960s to the anti-war militants of the New Left, and how they in turn gave way to a "Newer Left" that advocated causes such as gay rights and multiculturalism. Bringing the discussion into the 21st century, he shows how the post-2000 Bush administration succumbed to the "socialist" nationalisation it despised, and hails Barack Obama as a president for the left.
Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones was born in Carmarthen in Wales and was a postdoc at Harvard after obtaining his Ph.D. from Cambridge University. He has been an anti-apartheid campaigner and radio and TV broadcaster. President of the Scottish Association for the Study of America, he writes about US social and intelligence history, his latest books being In Spies We Trust: The Story of Western Intelligence and The American Left: Its Impact on Politics and Society since 1900.

Learn about Jeffreys-Jones's top ten classic spy novels.

The Page 99 Test: In Spies We Trust.

--Marshal Zeringue