The New Left: Legacy and Continuity

The greatest contribution of the New Left of the 1960s was its determination to build a culture and politics of popular participation at every level of society. A radical conception of democracy, it inspired the movements for civil rights, for peace and solidarity, and for gender and sexual equality. It framed the social debate, in terms of community-centered democratic theory, which continues to guide and inspire well into the twenty-first century.

As the contributors to this anthology revisit the 1960s to identify its ongoing impact on North American politics and culture, it becomes evident how this legacy has blended with and influenced today’s worldwide social movements, in particular, the anti-globalization movement and the Right to the City movement. The successes and failures of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) as they struggle for a voice at global levels are examined, as are the new movements of the urban disenfranchised—the homeless, the alienated youth, the elderly poor.

Apart from evoking memories of past peace and freedom struggles from those who worked on the social movements of the 1960s, this work also includes a number of essays from a rising generation of scholars, too young to have experienced the 1960s firsthand, whose perspective as non-participants enables them to offer fresh interpretations.

Dimitrios Roussopoulos, a prominent New Left activist in the 1960s, continues to write and edit on major international issues while being a committed activist, testing theory with practice.