The Politics of Authenticity: Liberalism, Christianity, and the New Left in America [Paperback]

Doug Rossinow (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 023111057X | ISBN-13: 978-0231110570 | Publication Date: October 15, 1998

Breaking new ground in cultural, political, and social history, Rossinow tells the story of the new left-wing movement that emerged in the 1960s from an innovative perspective: illustrating the spiritual dimension of student activism and providing the first account "from the bottom up" -- as well as linking local developments to the national scene.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

"A search for authenticity in industrial American life"?that's what historian Rossinow (history, Metropolitan State Univ.) has identified as the main thrust of the New Left movement that powered the youth-driven political and social revolutions of the 1960s. He argues that the New Left resulted from a reaction to traditional American liberalism, which was seen by New Leftists as "elite-based," and from the influence of Christian existentialism, which redefined "sin" as "alienation" and "salvation" as "authenticity." Rossinow meticulously analyzes the interplay of academic politics and Texas state politics on the campus of the University of Texas, Austin, and shows how the New Left formed its organizational structure and ideological basis. This is a carefully researched, creative, and intriguing reinterpretation of American history. His thesis concerning the influence of Christian existentialism is overextended and the book is somewhat repetitive. But Rossinow's emphasis on the New Left's concerns with personal wholeness makes the idea of a continuum between the 1960s and the 1970s more palatable. Future books about the movement will need to consider this important study. For academic and large public libraries.?Jack Forman, Mesa Coll. Lib., San Diego
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

A beautifully, elegantly written work, which will change the writing of U.S. history textbooks and the content of lectures in the U.S. history surveys. -- Daniel Horowitz author of Vance Packard and American Social Criticism

A carefully researched, creative, and intriguing reinterpretation of American history. -- Library Journal

Rossinow's brilliant analysis of the new left as an American search for authenticity brings together many strands of interpretation which have until now been explored in isolation. It is the most persuasive interpretation yet of the particular vision of authenticity, democracy, and individual freedom. -- Sara Evans author of Personal Politics: The Roots of Women's Liberation in the Civil Rights Movement and the New Left

Rossinows brilliant analysis of the new left as an American search for authenticity brings together many strands of interpretation which have until now been explored in isolation. It is the most persuasive interpretation yet of the particular vision of authenticity, democracy, and individual freedom. -- Sara Evans author of Personal Politics: The Roots of Womens Liberation in the Civil Rights Movement and the New Left

Rossinows important contribution to the dauntingly extensive literature on the 1960s convincingly demonstrates the importance of Christian (especially Protestant) existentialism to the movements and legacy of the New Left. -- Dorothy M. Brown

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Product Details

• Paperback: 520 pages
• Publisher: Columbia University Press (October 15, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 023111057X
• ISBN-13: 978-0231110570
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 5.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 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: #496,018 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars the new left, December 6, 2006

By 

ozzy "jonathan" (New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Politics of Authenticity: Liberalism, Christianity, and the New Left in America (Paperback)

Unlike many histories of the New Left, which emphasize its exceptionalism and separatism, this one emphasizes the Left's continuing conversations with other traditions of American reform-Christian evangelicalism, the Social Gospel, the lyrical Left, mainstream feminism--even liberalism. For example, Rossinow stresses the importance of the populist liberalism of the Lone Star State to the social construction of the Texas New Left. Early leftists were encouraged by liberals like Ronnie Dugger, and later leftists found that they could form some constructive coalitions with liberals. While Rossinow acknowledges the general hostility of the Left to liberalism, he also shows that leftists could be creatively eclectic and inconsistent in forming coalitions.
Like other Sixties analysts, Rossinow shows how, as Kurt Vonnegut said, "America radicalizes Americans." Indeed, non-leftists shaped the late Sixties Left by their intransigence and their attacks. University repression, Black Power, and the Vietnam War also drew leftists away from the optimistic assumptions of the early years. Still, this backlash also led to the richness of "new working class" analysis, which Rossinow explains extraordinarily well. The idea that "alienation isn't restricted to the poor" (p. 194) allowed leftists a wider range for radicalism, interrogating most of the institutions of American society. When the Vietnam War ended, and the national Left disintegrated, this wide-ranging cultural activism was what was left.

By the end of the decade, the emphasis on authenticity, coupled with the intransigence of the political "System" and the factionalism of the Left, led activists to an emphasis on cultural change through counter-cultural living. Instead of overthrowing American government, they would undermine American society by creating a new society in the shell of the old. Like the New Left, the counter-culture emphasized authenticity. Indeed, Rossinow suggests that "starting in 1966, counter-cultural activity became "the new left's most important strategy for fomenting social change in America" (p. 251). Like the lyrical Left of the early twentieth century, this prefigurative politics had its own (usually small, usually local) successes, but it also succeeded in bringing cultural issues into mainstream American politics, most often in the Democratic Party. And as Rossinow points out, it complemented the cultural modernism of the American middle classes. In either case, cultural radicalism became cultural meliorism, and reinforced the liberal individualism of the mainstream culture.

This book is valuable, not just for its own original and nuanced interpretation of Sixties politics, but for its historiographical insights. Rossinow knows virtually all of the literature on Sixties politics, and, both in the text and in the footnotes, he sets his interpretation in conversation with other Sixties analysts. The result is not just a first-rate monograph that complexifies the Sixties, but a guided tour of important scholarly thinking about that decisive decade.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Nothing but the facts..., November 19, 2001

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"spf80" (Austin, TX United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Politics of Authenticity: Liberalism, Christianity, and the New Left in America (Hardcover)

Rossinow paints a detailed picture at the activist life of the University of Texas during the days of the SDS and SNCC. It is amazing that someone like himself, who wasn't there and is much younger than the participants, can create such a tale. I'm too young to have been there also, but I've had the opportunity to meet some of these incredible people in my time here at UT-Austin. The activist blood still runs warm here, and will for years to come, and it is because of the people Rossinow has chronicled in this book. Want to know how things happened? Here it is. Want to be inspired toward change? Here it is.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Reviewing This Book is Reviewing My Own History, April 10, 2010

By 

Charlotte Gosselink (Southeast Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Politics of Authenticity: Liberalism, Christianity, and the New Left in America (Paperback)

Doug Rossinow's book was recommended to me by someone who knew that I would be quite familiar with the Austin, Texas setting, the people, and the era of the prime illustrations for his text. This turned out to be true, and therefore it was of interest to me. However, I would have to say that his political philosophy and theological discourse is not easy for the typical lay reader to follow.