Blood of the Liberals (Paperback)

~ (Author) "In the year of my grandfather's birth, 1869, Ulysses S. Grant became President and General Nathan Bedford Forrest (CSA) resigned as Grand Wizard and dissolved..." (more)
Key Phrases: convict lease, George Huddleston, New Deal, Blood of the Liberals (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Packer has produced a fascinating personal history while examining why people become liberals even though their efforts frequently seem extremely futile. The author describes the life and times of his Alabama-born maternal grandfather, Congressman George Huddleston, whose brand of liberalism was rooted in Southern agrarian populism and who often opposed FDR's New Deal. Packer also tells of his father, Herbert, whose Jewish American background placed him squarely in the urban liberal tradition of the mid-20th century. His father's life and career ultimately came to a turbulent climax as an administrator at Stanford University during the late 1960s. Finally, in a brief, informative, and moving autobiographical section, Packer recounts the development of his own social and political views following his father's stroke and suicide. The author attempts to demonstrate the ongoing relevance to today's world of a political philosophy that many believe has little future. Packer's combination of personal and historical perspectives, as well as his considerable skill at conveying them, make this work both challenging and enjoyable. Written for the lay reader, it nonetheless avoids oversimplification. Highly recommended.DCharles K. Piehl, Minnesota State Univ., Mankato
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From The Washington Post

". . . difficult to imagine a more precise and pointed summary of the current state of American liberalism . . . Provocative -- and persuasive."

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Product Details

• Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; Reprint edition (August 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374527784
• ISBN-13: 978-0374527785
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #302,498 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

43 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A voice in the wilderness, June 18, 2002

By	Anthony Berno (San Jose, Ca USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

How did such a basic, rational notion as liberalism turn into the favorite epithet of talk-show hosts? What happened to social justice? Where is the freewheeling spirit of the Sixties? These, and other questions, have haunted me for years. Not being well versed in American history, the seemingly abrupt annhiliation of everything "liberal" has caused me great puzzlement and distress.

Packer, in a beautiful amalgam of memoir and history, has written a book that has almost singlehandedly restored my relationship with the past and pointed my way to the future. While as a historical account it is spotty, and as a memoir it is sometimes dry, the heartfelt combination of these two styles has a vitality and immediacy I've never seen anywhere else.

His conclusions, while expansive, are also poignant, with a touch of desperation. In his consideration of the prospects of liberalism in this country, I am reminded of the Monty Python sketch about the parrot - "It's just resting!" - while at the same time I'm stirred by its undercurrent of optimism. His last few words ring in my ears: "We will have a more just society as soon as we want one."

If you sense that, like myself, you are a lost liberal that is trying to find your way in the world, this book is for you.

If you are a Rush Limbaugh dittohead who needs a clue as to what "liberal" really means, this book is for you as well.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Family Story Illuminates Politics of Our time, September 16, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Blood of the Liberals (Hardcover)

This a far better than average memoir. It is a sturdy, well written story that you haven't read before. It is about coming of age after liberalism's big battles are won. Packer looks at the life of his grandfather, his father and his own life (so far)in trying to exemplify politics of intelligence and inclusion. His grandfather was a U.S. Representative George Huddleston Sr. of Birmingham, Al serving from 1916 to l938. As the Depression Congressman from Birmingham he was an advocate for the New Deal until it went too far. His father was a brilliant lawyer and teacher at Stanford who fought the battles of McCarthyism only to be beaten silly in the campus revolts of the 1960s that made "liberalism" and ugly word. Packer himself became a Democratic Socialist during the illiberal age in which we now live, working in a homeless shelter, becoming a carpenter (hiding his Yale degree) in Boston. His story of visiting his Birmingham family in recent years to see the place his grandfather served is just wonderful. His uncle George Huddleston Jr. was elected to Congress as a liberal in 1954 and departed in the Goldwater sweep of the South in 1964 as a conservative as he tried to move right on the race issue. He never made it and didn't return to Alabama until he was to be buried. Packer adventures with his uncle George's widow Aunt AJ in Birmingham today is hilarious and sad. His sketch of businessman Drayton Nabors, a man confident of a Christian a Great Awakening across America but can't imagine an increase in the minimum wage is priceless.

23 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A rallying cry for modern liberalism, December 30, 2001

By	Thomas A. Olafson "A viewer from California" (California) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I really enjoyed Packer's book. I'm roughly a contemporary of his, and experienced the same wrenching events that occurred in modern liberalism during the late 1960s and early 1970s.I'd just finished reading Roth's "American Pastoral", and it was great to follow it up by reading Packer's book.

Like Packer, my father was an academic at an elite university, and as a traditional liberal who voted for Adlai, he was shocked by what he saw during the late 1960s. On a personal level, I liked reading a book by a writer who likes the same authors I like - Saul Bellow (Humboldt's Gift), Christopher Lasch, Irving Howe et al. There is a passage in which Packer perfectly summarizes the thesis of Lasch's "Revolt of the Elites" - gated communities like the ones that dot my hometown in Southern California.

The only area where I would fault Packer's book is that he does not criticize the dogmatic, politically correct tone that liberalism took on during the late 1980s and early 1990s and which still haunts liberalism. What alarmed Packer's father was exactly that, and I'm afraid Packer only devotes one paragraph to it. Left liberalism has, I'm afraid, taken on a neo-Stalinist quality on some college campuses, viz, stealing copies of conservative campus newspapers which take politically incorrect stands on such issues as affirmative action. Liberals should decry that just as much as the depredations of the Right. David Horowitz shouldn't be the only one who claims the moral high ground on that issue. I don't know if Packer's father would be a neoconservative today, but he might have been, if he'd lived.

Aside from all that, I commend Packer's book. It is a decent, humane and intelligent work that says that there's still a place at the political table for liberalism, even for disheartened liberals like me!