Michael KazinAmerican Dreamers: How the Left Changed a Nation

I liked this book a great deal. It is an easy read (meaning it is not filled with academic jargon), but it also has copious notes at the end if you would like to investigate further topics that Kazin writes about. This is an especially important book for those who fancy themselves socialists, anarchists, or Marxists of any flavor, for it shows how radicals in the past had an important impact on this country, even if the "revolution of the proletariat" never happened. He starts out by covering the abolitionist movement, which started in the 1820s. Then, he moves on to the years shortly before and after the Civil War. After that, he delves into the Populist movement, which resulted in the reforms of the so-called Progressive Era. Before dealing with the present day, he sheds light on the influence of the Communist Party U.S.A. and the New Left. I liked the book because it clearly shows that the hard work of those who claim the tag "Leftist" does result in change, however slowly. It also shows that Americans, who worship at the altar of individualism, will not tolerate radical change and will go to great lengths to crush such movements. I mentioned this book on several radical blogs that I frequent and it was dismissed as a useless book. I'm sure that Michael Kazin would understand. If you are an activist for social justice and are down in the dumps and questioning the worth of what you do, read this book - it will show you that your work does, indeed, have an impact. You might even be cheered up by reading the book, because it situates social justice movements in the larger history of this country.

The author has undertaken a massive topic - the American left since the days of the abolitionists until the 21st century. Mostly he succeeded in what he planned to do, which was to show that even when the careers of leftist activists seemed to have ended in failure, the movements which they advocated often succeeded in the end. I thought that his handling of the subject of the American Communist Party was particularly good, and important for people who know nothing about the subject, or know only what they heard in the 1950's. I was disappointed not to find a few of my favorite names included in the book - e.g. Joan Baez - but other important activists are very well represented. I think people who know nothing about this subject, AND people who think they know all there is to know, should read this book.

My granddaughter and I are reading it together. We both feel it fills a serious gap in our high-school and early college studies. I cannot give it five (5) stars because the author does not, so far, treat the influence of liberal/left related activities in the western part of the country. The author writes well. This is greatly appreciated. N. V. Frederick.

In explaining what the left contributed to America in political as well as cultural ways, Professor Kazin helps us to understand the groundswell of support for the 2016 Democratic presidential candidate, Bernie Sanders.

If you want to read about how terrible the United States is and how all the worlds evils come from here, then make sure you buy this book. Although I had to read it for a college class, I stopped half way through and refused to continue and the book is so anti-American that my professor completely understood!!

Comprehensive and elegantly written, and, happily, very sympathetic to the Left. Mr. Kazin just proves that history does not have to be dull or dry.

American Dreamers contains some useful basic information about leftists over the course of U.S. history. However, its tone changes over the final two chapters to a defeatist notion that leftists in recent decades have invariably erred, causing the movement's destruction. Token acknowledgement is given to misinformation by our corporate media and consolidation of conservatives since Reagan, but no mention is made of COINTELPRO and other systematic efforts to turn us against each other. For example, the Black Panthers, SDS, and other New Left groups are portrayed as disparate campaigns torn away from the larger movement by their own incompetence and competing interests, not by the well documented (elsewhere) efforts of the FBI to infiltrate and create/exploit chasms within them. Little mention is made of mass arrests and police murders of activists, therefore no sense of martyrdom is drawn by the reader.This book is clearly "faux left." It's a propaganda effort designed to draw leftist readership and drain us of the interest and sense of efficacy needed to expand or sustain the movement.

In starting, Kazin discusses the conflict between freedom of the individual and the power of the state to control the individual. Over time, in the United States, concern for individual freedom has been paramount, subject however, to gradual moves to government involvement as the result, in part at least, by strenuous efforts of the left. It is Kazin's opinion that the left will never be dominant. He then proceeds to an overview of those efforts and the resultant successes and limitations starting with abolitionists in the early 19th century and contining to 2011. What seemed like hopeless tasks did, after all, produce some fruit. I chose the title "fair and balanced" because Kazin does admit shortcomings and failures of leftist efforts. Kazin hopes the book prompts heated discussion. I doubt if it will. I recommend American Dreamers for anyone who wants to get a taste of left wing efforts in the US over the past two centuries.