For a new America : essays in history and politics from Studies on the left, 1959-1967

488 Pages·1970·15.492 MB·English

by  James Weinstein, David W. Eakins

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.