For a new America : essays in history and politics from Studies on the left, 1959-1967 PDF
Preview For a new America : essays in history and politics from Studies on the left, 1959-1967
FOR A NEW AMERICA Essays in History and Politics from Studies on the Left, 1959-1967 FOR A NEW AMERICA Essays in History and Politics from Studies on the Left, 1959-1967 edited by James Weinstein and David W. Eakins RANDOM HOUSE New York FIRST PRINTING 98765432 Copyright © 1970 by James Weinstein and David W. Eakins All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 73-85618 Manufactured in the United States of America by The Haddon Craftsmen, Inc. Designed by Vincent Torre Preface Studies on the Left began publishing in Madison, Wiscon¬ sin, in the fall of 1959 and ceased publication in New York City in the summer of 1967. During those seven and a half years, twenty-eight editors served as board members, some for less than a year, others for almost the entire time. Although all the editors were leftists they repre¬ sented a wide range of views and tendencies and many professional concerns and interests. Studies was many things to its editors and to its readers, and several very different anthologies could be made from its pages, d his volume brings together the articles and reviews that we think are most important to the historical and theoretical development of a revolutionary movement in the United States. The emphasis in these selections is on an historical ex¬ amination of the American political economy in the twentieth century, and on the histories of the socialist and Afro-American movements. Consequently, many articles on early American history, Cuba and Latin America, liter¬ ary criticism, reports of movement activities—have been omitted, some because they clearly do not fit into the framework of this collection, others because their interest, in our opinion, was short-lived. Other articles, such as William A. Williams’ essays on “American Intervention in Russia, 1917-1919,” have been omitted because they have been reprinted elsewhere.1 We believe that Studies on the Left was important in 1 Williams’ articles appear in Containment and Revolution, David Horo¬ witz, ed. (Boston, Beacon Press, 1967). vi Preface two ways. First, it helped to revive radical scholarship in the United States and to create a new radical understand¬ ing of the American political economy. Second, Studies contributed to the consciousness and ideological develop¬ ment of the New Left. We think it is important to discuss the political history of Studies itself, and we have therefore written our own essay on the journal’s development in place of a general introduction to this anthology. Such a history is unavoid¬ ably both internal and partisan, and we realize that ours is only one of several possible treatments of the basic di¬ rection of the journal and its contents. Of necessity also, our essay touches only on several aspects of the journal’s contents and skips entirely over much more. A compre¬ hensive review of Studies’ content, however, would be impossibly long, boring, and unnecessary in any event— complete runs of the journal are available in many li¬ braries and all seven volumes are being reprinted.2 We hope this selection will stimulate readers to look at the complete volumes. D.W.E. J.W. 2 A.M.S. Press, New York, 1969.
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