All-American Rebels: The American Left from the Wobblies to Today

From women’s suffrage to Civil Rights for African Americans, to the environment, and the gay and lesbian liberation movement, the American Left has achieved notable successes in the 20th and 21st centuries. Sometimes celebrated and sometimes reviled, the Left has taken on many forms and reinvented itself many times over the past century.

In All-American Rebels, historian Robert C. Cottrell traces the rise and fall, ebb and flow of left-wing American movements. Following an overview of early 20th century movements, Cottrell focuses on the 1960s to today, offering readers a concise introduction and helping them to understand the political and ideological roots of the Left today. Cottrell includes chapters on the most recent versions of the American left, discussing community organizing, gay liberation, the women’s movement, the Campaign for Economic Democracy, the nuclear freeze movement, opposition to U.S. intervention in Central America, the anti-WTO campaign, Code Pink, Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, Antifa, and more. The demand for and support of democracy and the quest for empowerment in various guises unifies these different lefts to one another and to the general unfolding of American history. Cottrell argues that democratic engagement has proven inconsistent and at times outright contradictory. The Left has been most successful when it fully embraces a democratic vision.

Among Robert C. Cottrell’s books are seminal biographies of the radical journalist I. F. Stone, ACLU icon Roger Nash Baldwin, and Negro League founder Rube Foster. He also authored a book on WWII-era conscientious objectors who served as smokejumpers for the Civilian Public Service, and a dual biography of Hank Greenberg and Jackie Robinson that braided the unholy trinity of anti-Semitism, racism, and baseball. Cottrell’s most recent works include Drugs, Sex, and Rock ’n Roll: The Rise of America’s 1960s Counterculture and 1968: The Rise and Fall of the New American Revolution (both published by R & L). He is currently completing another retrospective of the 1960s, highlighting the theme of empowerment.