Not really a "conservative" book; much more than just a polemic

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	• A Conservative History of the American Left Daniel J. Flynn Crown Forum, 2008 - 464 pages average customer review:based on 7 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Not really a "conservative" book; much more than just a polemic

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.)

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A must read for anyone interested in history

A Conservative History of the American Left is a terrific book bearing a title that will, unfortunately, keep the very people who need to read it from doing so. As other reviewers have asserted, Daniel Flynn's work is highly readable and very difficult to put down. I thought I already knew much about many of the figures, groups and events covered and yet Flynn continually surprised me with interesting revelations - many of them tiny - and new insights. History offers many ironies and Flynn never seems to miss this point. Overall, A Conservative History of the American Left is both splendid history and great entertainment.

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One of the best books I have ever read

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. :-)

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Amazing information presented with scrupulous fairness

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.

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A Very Interesting History

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 as 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.

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reviews: page 1, 2

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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