The History, Theory & Praxis of the (‘old’ and New) Left in the 1960s: A Basic Bibliography.

Below is the introduction to my latest compilation, The History, Theory & Praxis of the (‘old’ and New) Left in the 1960s: A Basic Bibliography.

This bibliography is not exhaustive owing, in part, to three constraints: books, in English, with a largely (thus not exclusively) North American orientation. In addition, this compilation assumes the 1950s spill over into the 1960s and that the cultural ethos and politics of “the Left” in the 1960s, in turn, coherently and often vibrantly persist in one way or another into the 1970s (in other words, our periodization lacks mathematical rigour and so our historical parameter, in spite of the title, can encompass several decades). The works below by avowedly Left or Left-leaning intellectuals (some of which were written prior to or after the ‘60s) are intended to be merely representative and thus indicative of their formative influence during this period. I assume there are rarely good reasons for drawing hard and fast boundaries between a Left worldview or lifeworld and countercultural identities and endeavors. Finally, there is only a smattering of analytical, critical, and biographical titles devoted to these selfsame intellectuals (perhaps less so for the groups, organizations, and movements they were associated with).

 

Bobby Seale, ordered by Judge Hoffman to be bound and gagged during the trial of the Chicago Eight in 1969 (later ‘Seven,’ when Seale’s case was severed from that of the other defendants), as drawn by the “dean of courtroom art and revered artist from CBS news,” Howard Brodie.