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

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