Democracy Is in the Streets: From Port Huron to the Siege of Chicago, With a New Preface by the Author [Paperback]

James Miller (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 20, 1994 | ISBN-10: 0674197259 | ISBN-13: 978-0674197251

On June 12, 1962, sixty young student activists drafted a manifesto for their generation—The Port Huron Statement—that ignited a decade of dissent. Democracy Is in the Streets is the definitive history of the major people and ideas that shaped the New Left in America during that turbulent decade. Because the 1960s generation is now moving into positions of power in politics, education, the media, and business, their early history is crucial to our understanding. James Miller, in his new Preface, puts the 1960s and them into a context for our time, claiming that something of value did happen: "Most of the large questions raised by that moment of chaotic openness—political questions about the limits of freedom, and cultural questions, too, about the authority of the past and the anarchy of the new—are with us still."

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In 1962, at Port Huron, Mich., Tom Hayden led members of Students for a Democratic Society in drafting a manifesto advocating participatory democracy. "The Port Huron Statement" became a beacon to student activists and civil rights workers during the 1960s. Miller, an ex-SDS member and author of Rousseau: Dreamer of Democracy, argues here that the Port Huron proclamation owes as much to Quaker practices, John Dewey's pragmatism and civic republican philosophy as it does to Karl Marx. In charting the history of the New Left through the lives of a handful of SDS leaders, this highly personal chronicle sometimes lacks balance and loses sight of the broader political context. The participatory spirit of Port Huron lives on, maintains Miller, in current efforts to democratize all areas of life, from the workplace to the family. An appendix reprints the 63-page "Port Huron Statement."
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

This excellent study is an important addition to our understanding of the New Left of the 1960s. Tracing the birth, development, and demise of SDS (Students for a Democratic Society), it focuses on key individualsTom Hayden, Dick Flacks, Sharon Jeffrey, et al. It tells their story and that of their organization, its guiding document "The Port Huron Statement," and its call for "participatory democracy"an ambiguous phrase which nonetheless signified the spirit of SDS and provided a mechanism to recruit, convince, and convert. Miller writes sympathetically but not uncritically about "a mass movement to change America" that briefly flourished, touched countless lives and institutions, and continues to influence politics in the 1980s. Strongly recommended. John R. Sillito, Weber State Coll. Lib., Ogden, Utah
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: Harvard University Press (September 20, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0674197259
• ISBN-13: 978-0674197251
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #734,222 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars More SDS History, April 7, 2002

By 

Jeffrey Leach (Omaha, NE USA) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Democracy Is in the Streets: From Port Huron to the Siege of Chicago, With a New Preface by the Author (Paperback)

This is another history concerning the SDS, or the Students for a Democratic Society. Miller admits in the introduction that he was a member of SDS and is sympathetic to what they did or tried to do. Not only is this book shorter than Kirkpatrick Sale's excellent history of SDS, but its focus is different as well. Where Sale focuses on the group as a whole, Miller provides more of an intellectual history of SDS. Miller provides exacting detail on the early period of SDS, especially the convention that produced the Port Huron Statement. For a much more thorough and detailed history of the SDS, please refer to Kirkpatrick Sale's SDS.

I still really enjoyed reading Miller's book. I like books that discuss intellectual development, and this one certainly accomplishes that. There is even an entire chapter devoted to C. Wright Mills, the radical sociologist that so many in the New Left idolized. Mills's idea of publics and his concerns about technology spoke directly to the alienation many young leftists felt. Miller points out that both Mills and the New Left shared a crucial weakness; both articulated problems without posing any effective solutions. This is most apparent in the idea of participatory democracy, the cornerstone of Port Huron. This idea, much touted by SDS members for most of its history, was never adequately defined in the document. Miller shows that many of the SDS projects, such as ERAP, were attempts to put participatory democracy into practice. The end result was failure because a concept such as this would probably only work on an extremely small level. As more people are brought into the mix, participation becomes problematic because so many different ideas are brought forth. Process and decisions become arthritic and meetings drag on for hours without results.

Miller seems to bog down considerably when he moves into the second half of his work. He provides four accounts of four separate members of SDS, one of whom is of course Tom Hayden. The problem with this technique is that none of these members had much to do with SDS after 1965. The later struggles of SDS are subsumed under these four accounts. Therefore, not nearly enough detail is given to the PL-SDS and Weather split in 1969. For description of the old guard of SDS, Miller is an excellent source. Just don't expect to find out much about late 1960's SDS.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding account of SDS and Tom Hayden, June 25, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Democracy Is in the Streets: From Port Huron to the Siege of Chicago, With a New Preface by the Author (Paperback)

While Miller is notably weak in is treatment -- and I would say understanding -- of the impact of the counter-culture and the civil rights movements, this is probably the most authoritative account to SDS, the student dimension of the anti-war movement, and the intellectual history of the New Left. His treatment is highly critical but born of a sympathetic hopes. He vastly overestimates the impact of the 1960s on American politics, and misses out of the opportunities to demostrate the lasting impact which developed through the "new social movements" of the 1970s and the present.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars fascinating and brilliant, June 17, 2009

By 

D. Guttenplan (London, UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Democracy Is in the Streets: From Port Huron to the Siege of Chicago, With a New Preface by the Author (Paperback)

I just happened on the reviews of this book and noticed that someone had given it less than 5 stars, which seemed to me fundamentally unjust. Democracy is in the Streets is a terrific book, and although it has been at least 10 years since I read it through--pretty much in one sitting--it has never been off my shelves and is often on my mind. Miller is a wonderful writer and a brilliant intellectual historian. I like (and use) Kirk Sale's history as well, but Miller is much more accessible and almost as exhaustive (but a lot less exhausting). Anyone interested in the history of the New Left in the US needs to read this book.