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Title: A Conservative History of the American Left
ISBN: 0307339467
Author:
Daniel J. Flynn
Publicate Date: 2008-04-29
Publish: 2008-04-29
List Price: $27.50
Average Customer Rating: 4.5
Format: Hardcover
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $16.08
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $15.75
Amazon Merchant Price: $18.15
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| Customer Review: |
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1: Very well researched
I checked this book out from the library too but wouldn't mind owning it. Not because it's a conservative book but it does offer insight and a valid alternative to conventional wisdom about American reformists, progressives, and American history.
It is loaded with information about American history in light of the Leftist movements dating back to the early 19th century. Some of that early history seems a little sketchy compared to the author's writing about the 20th century Left, but then again, the 20th century was probably had much more supporting documentation anyway.
To anyone who may read this, this book does not dismiss American ideals or idealism in general, but rather shows how badly corrupted many reform and progressive movements become. Mostly though, it is about the reckless leaders of these movements who created so much havoc within their groups and the country as a whole. They have repeated mistake after mistake as though they were genetically programmed for disaster.
I can guarantee that anyone with an open mind will learn a great deal after reading even half of this book. The author's writing style is very easy to read and comprehend. But don't think this is just another conservative book trashing the Left. It's very well researched.
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2: A must read for anyone interested in history
A Conservative History of the American Left is a terrific book bearing a title that will, unfortunately, keep the very people who need to read it from doing so. As other reviewers have asserted, Daniel Flynn's work is highly readable and very difficult to put down. I thought I already knew much about many of the figures, groups and events covered and yet Flynn continually surprised me with interesting revelations - many of them tiny - and new insights. History offers many ironies and Flynn never seems to miss this point. Overall, A Conservative History of the American Left is both splendid history and great entertainment.
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3: Not really a "conservative" book; much more than just a polemic
It's a pity this book has been marketed so heavily as a "conservative" book, because it is in fact much more interesting than that. Yes, it has an agenda - on the other hand, it is straightforward about it, and frankly much less than, say, Zinn's and many, many others. But Flynn has done very interesting work on the early history of the American left, and his interviews with living figures from the 60s - Todd Gitlin and many more - are extremely interesting and good. Among his main points? First, that the American left has done best when it has emphasized its Americanness and its roots in an egalitarian American culture, leaving aside ideologies from abroad in favor of a trade union, reformist agenda. Second, the most important matter of inequality in the US has never been class as such, but race, and the fact and legacy of slavery. This is not quite what you would expect from a "conservative" book - far from it, in fact - but he makes a strong case for it, and for seeing this as a crucial reason why the importation of European ideologies such as communism did not seem well suited to the actual conditions of inequality in America. (The book also makes a pointed attack on the history of "progressivism" in America, somewhat along the lines of Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism, but more scholarly.)
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4: A Very Interesting History
Mr. Flynn has written a very interesting, readable, and useful history of the American left. Mr. Flynn stresses that the left is basically against what is, and becomes hostile to the most natural and spontaneous human institutions - the family, marriage, and the free market. Mr. Flynn describes quite a few differing leftist groups and how they failed to achieve their sought for utopia. He provides quite a bit of interesting information. In particular the extensive damage done by the Rosenberg spy ring was new to this reviewer.
Mr. Flynn is particularly good at describing the interesting personalities of the American left. Such people include John Reed, John Noyes, and many others. A lot of them are not particularly admirable, and some are real stinkers. Mr. Flynn has done a lot of historical research to adequately describe the lives of these individuals.
However Mr. Flynn does have an Achilles heel - ignorance of macroeconomics. This is apparent when he attempts to discuss the economics of the new deal. Mr. Flynn is right that the National Recovery Act and other acts of over regulation by Franklin Roosevelt and his administration hindered the economy. However Mr. Flynn neglects to mention the economy was worse when President Hoover left office. He does not understand the basic problem of the great depression which was deflation, or the too small supply of money. As described by Peter Temin Lessons from the Great Depression (Lionel Robbins Lectures), Gene Smiley Rethinking the Great Depression (American Ways Series), and Barry Eichengreen Golden Fetters: The Gold Standard and the Great Depression, 1919-1939 (NBER Series on Long-Term Factors in Economic Development) the prevailing gold standard insured that reduction of the money supply, deflation, and recession were the only reliable means to keep the foreign balance of payments in balance. Franklin Roosevelt, unlike Hoover and Daniel Flynn, realized this and moved away from the gold standard. Economist Christina Romer has demonstrated that the extra gold now available from the ending of the gold standard was used as a high power money input into the federal reserve system. Thus the rising money supply brought about some recovery. Unemployment declined during the Roosevelt from the Hoover administration high, particularly when the employees of the Works Progress Administration are counted as employed, not unemployed. Mr. Flynn should have studied and referenced the economists previously cited rather than the journalist John T. Flynn.
This discussion is not to idolize Franklin Roosevelt, his errors in judgment, his often obfuscation of economic and other issues, his political machinations, and later egregious violations of civil liberties during World War II. But to be factual the writer should allow for the successes of the new deal.
But everything considered this book is quite good.
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5: Amazing information presented with scrupulous fairness
With wit and insight Flynn traces the utopians who have longed to change society. Some were merely silly, some were mad, and some evil.
Take the "strange men who founded" (p 47) the Harvard commune. One was a vegetarian who would eat apples one year, crackers the next. There was also a celibate who heard voices, a man once jailed for not bathing, and, of course, a nudist. What fun it must have been at dinner time.
While some idealists were naifs, some were knew just what they were doing. Take Kinsey, whose "impact knew no bounds" (p 253) as a social scientist pushing for freer sexuality. He "shared his wife with co-workers" (p 254} and insisted that children, even babies, enjoyed sex. His source for this claim was pedophiles. I am not making this up.
Then there was Margaret Sanger, a racist who pushed eugenics, a fact never mentioned in Planned Parenthood brochures. Or John Reed (whose life inspired the movie "Reds") who never met a revolutionary he didn't love, but who had a stone heart for the women he used and the masses killed by communists.
By the 1960's the Left "had grown frustrated over the working class's refusal to adhere to the roles Marx" (p 267) wanted. The 60's nevertheless soon swarmed leftist Panthers, Weathermen, hippies, LSD, and agitation over the Vietnam war. Betty Friedan, a red diaper baby, announced that the home was a concentration camp, and the feminist movement was born.
In the end, Flynn finds "this is a book more about dreams than about reality...Setbacks cause enthusiasts to repackage but never to reassess" (p. 371). Leftists continue to seek human and worldwide perfection. And, frequently, the rest of us have to clean up the messes left behind.
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