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A Conservative History of the American Left | 
 enlarge | Author: Daniel J. Flynn
Publisher: Crown Forum
Category: Book
List Price: $27.50
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Avg. Customer Rating:  6 reviews
Sales Rank: 133919
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 464
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.6
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6 x 1.8
ISBN: 0307339467
Dewey Decimal Number: 335.3
EAN: 9780307339461
ASIN: 0307339467
Publication Date: April 29, 2008
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Product Description
From Communes to the Clintons
Why does Hillary Clinton crusade for government-provided health care for every American, for the redistribution of wealth, and for child rearing to become a collective obligation? Why does Al Gore say that it’s okay to “over-represent” the dangers of global warming in order to sell Americans on his draconian solutions? Why does Michael Moore call religion a device to manipulate “gullible” Americans?
Where did these radical ideas come from? And how did they enter the mainstream discourse?
In this groundbreaking and compelling new book, Daniel J. Flynn uncovers the surprising origins of today’s Left. The first work of its kind, A Conservative History of the American Left tells the story of this remarkably resilient extreme movement–one that came to America’s shores with the earliest settlers.
Flynn reveals a history that leftists themselves ignore, whitewash, or obscure. Partly the Left’s amnesia is convenient: Who wouldn’t want to forget an ugly history that includes eugenics, racism, violence, and sheer quackery? Partly it is self-aggrandizing: Bold schemes sound much more innovative when you refuse to acknowledge that they have been tried–and have failed–many times before. And partly it is unavoidable: The Left is so preoccupied with its triumphal future that it doesn’t pause to learn from its past mistakes. So it goes that would-be revolutionaries have repeatedly failed to recognize the one troubling obstacle to their grandiose visions: reality.
In unfolding this history, Flynn presents a page-turning narrative filled with colorful, fascinating characters–progressives and populists, radicals and reformers, socialists and SDSers, and leftists of every other stripe. There is the rags-to-riches Welsh industrialist who brought his utopian vision to America–one in which private property, religion, and marriage represented “the most monstrous evils”–and gained audiences with the likes of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and James Madison. There is the wife-swapping Bible thumper who nominated Jesus Christ for president. There is the playboy adventurer whose worshipful accounts of Soviet Russia lured many American liberals to Communism. There is the daughter of privilege turned violent antiwar activist who lost her life to a bomb she had intended to use against American soldiers. There are fanatics and free spirits, perverts and puritans, entrepreneurs and altruists, and many more beyond.
A Conservative History of the American Left is a gripping chronicle of the radical visionaries who have relentlessly pursued their lofty ambitions to remake society. Ultimately, Flynn shows the destructiveness that comes from this undying pursuit of dreams that are utterly unattainable.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 1 more reviews...
 Not really a "conservative" book; much more than just a polemic July 8, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
It's a pity this book has been marketed so heavily as a "conservative" book, because it is in fact much more interesting than that. Yes, it has an agenda - on the other hand, it is straightforward about it, and frankly much less than, say, Zinn's and many, many others. But Flynn has done very interesting work on the early history of the American left, and his interviews with living figures from the 60s - Todd Gitlin and many more - are extremely interesting and good. Among his main points? First, that the American left has done best when it has emphasized its Americanness and its roots in an egalitarian American culture, leaving aside ideologies from abroad in favor of a trade union, reformist agenda. Second, the most important matter of inequality in the US has never been class as such, but race, and the fact and legacy of slavery. This is not quite what you would expect from a "conservative" book - far from it, in fact - but he makes a strong case for it, and for seeing this as a crucial reason why the importation of European ideologies such as communism did not seem well suited to the actual conditions of inequality in America. (The book also makes a pointed attack on the history of "progressivism" in America, somewhat along the lines of Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism, but more scholarly.)
A Very Interesting History July 8, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Mr. Flynn has written a very interesting, readable, and useful history of the American left. Mr. Flynn stresses that the left is basically against what is, and becomes hostile to the most natural and spontaneous human institutions - the family, marriage, and the free market. Mr. Flynn describes quite a few differing leftist groups and how they failed to achieve their sought for utopia. He provides quite a bit of interesting information. In particular the extensive damage done by the Rosenberg spy ring was new to this reviewer.
Mr. Flynn is particularly good at describing the interesting personalities of the American left. Such people include John Reed, John Noyes, and many others. A lot of them are not particularly admirable, and some are real stinkers. Mr. Flynn has done a lot of historical research to adequately describe the lives of these individuals.
However Mr. Flynn does have an Achilles heel - ignorance of macroeconomics. This is apparent when he attempts to discuss the economics of the new deal. Mr. Flynn is right that the National Recovery Act and other acts of over regulation by Franklin Roosevelt and his administration hindered the economy. However Mr. Flynn neglects to mention the economy was worse when President Hoover left office. He does not understand the basic problem of the great depression which was deflation, or the too small supply of money. As described by Peter Temin Lessons from the Great Depression (Lionel Robbins Lectures), Gene Smiley Rethinking the Great Depression (American Ways Series), and Barry Eichengreen Golden Fetters: The Gold Standard and the Great Depression, 1919-1939 (NBER Series on Long-Term Factors in Economic Development) the prevailing gold standard insured that reduction of the money supply, deflation, and recession were the only reliable means to keep the foreign balance of payments in balance. Franklin Roosevelt, unlike Hoover and Daniel Flynn, realized this and moved away from the gold standard. Economist Christina Romer has demonstrated that the extra gold now available from the ending of the gold standard was used a high power money input into the federal reserve system. Thus the rising money supply brought about some recovery. Unemployment declined during the Roosevelt from the Hoover administration high, particularly when the employees of the Works Progress Administration are counted as employed, not unemployed. Mr. Flynn should have studied and referenced the economists previously cited rather than the journalist John T. Flynn.
This discussion is not to idolize Franklin Roosevelt, his errors in judgment, his often obfuscation of economic and other issues, his political machinations, and later egregious violations of civil liberties during World War II. But to be factual the writer should allow for the successes of the new deal.
But everything considered this book is quite good.
 One of the best books I have ever read June 18, 2008
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
This book is a meticulous history of the American Left, endlessly informative and scary/amusing. However, I call it "one of the best books I have ever read" because of one idea in the book, which I will never forget.
The American Left has two faces: one of them is the Freedom Left("Smoke what you like, bed down with whoever, be free to be you") and the other one is the Force Left("We will tell you what to eat and drink; we will take your money and spend it because we know better than you: do as we say so that human behavior may come to resemble our desired Utopia.")
It's absolutely true, and resonates deeply. Sure, the Democrats support "gay rights" -- but there are thousands of Force Leftists who join virulent NGOs and travel the world to make sure that gay people are doing as they are told. Most of them are fat old women, but I probably shouldn't say that. :-)
Amazing information presented with scrupulous fairness June 12, 2008
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
With wit and insight Flynn traces the utopians who have longed to change society. Some were merely silly, some were mad, and some evil.
Take the "strange men who founded" (p 47) the Harvard commune. One was a vegetarian who would eat apples one year, crackers the next. There was also a celibate who heard voices, a man once jailed for not bathing, and, of course, a nudist. What fun it must have been at dinner time.
While some idealists were naifs, some were knew just what they were doing. Take Kinsey, whose "impact knew no bounds" (p 253) as a social scientist pushing for freer sexuality. He "shared his wife with co-workers" (p 254} and insisted that children, even babies, enjoyed sex. His source for this claim was pedophiles. I am not making this up.
Then there was Margaret Sanger, a racist who pushed eugenics, a fact never mentioned in Planned Parenthood brochures. Or John Reed (whose life inspired the movie "Reds") who never met a revolutionary he didn't love, but who had a stone heart for the women he used and the masses killed by communists.
By the 1960's the Left "had grown frustrated over the working class's refusal to adhere to the roles Marx" (p 267) wanted. The 60's nevertheless soon swarmed leftist Panthers, Weathermen, hippies, LSD, and agitation over the Vietnam war. Betty Friedan, a red diaper baby, announced that the home was a concentration camp, and the feminist movement was born.
In the end, Flynn finds "this is a book more about dreams than about reality...Setbacks cause enthusiasts to repackage but never to reassess" (p. 371). Leftists continue to seek human and worldwide perfection. And, frequently, the rest of us have to clean up the messes left behind.
Don't Judge it by its Title June 4, 2008
12 out of 13 found this review helpful
Many people might expect a book with the title of "A Conservative History of the American Left" to be a Coulter style polemic. This book is closer to what you should expect from Tom Sowell or Paul Hollander. Flynn traces the history of leftist idealism/utopianism all the way back to Plymouth Rock. The unrealizable visions that Flynn explores have come in many forms and guises. There are also many aspects of this history that modern leftists do not want to hear about. It turns out the Margaret Sanger, Robert Owen, and John Dewey are not quite as admirable as some like to think.
A Conservative History of the American Left is interesting as a piece of intellectual history. Critics from the left will surely find fault with at least some elements of Flynn's research. Its style is polemical at times. The contents of this book are not entirely unheard of either (I have heard of Pilgrim socialism before). Yet this book proves to be as illuminating as it is provocative. Well done!
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