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Freedom Book of the Month for July 2000:
A Generation Divided: The New Left, The New Right, and the 1960's
by Rebecca E. Klatch
University of California Press, 386 pp.
This column is called "Freedom Book of the Month" for a reason.
We do our best to review works that are released within a 30-day window surrounding the appearance of the review, so as to offer books that are not only worthwhile, but timely.
Occasionally, however, we just miss the boat. Rebecca E. Klatch's "A Generation Divided" hit the bookstores last October -- and is only now getting the recognition it deserves as our Freedom Book of the Month.
How many of you remember the Sixties? Okay, that's not fair. Those who do won't want to admit their age, and those who don't will be ashamed to have missed Woodstock. You may or may not remember that turbulent decade, but it would be nearly impossible to overestimate the impact it had on American politics and on a nascent libertarian movement that came into its own as a result.
Klatch chronicles the dramatic clash of ideologies, the aftershocks of which still affect us today, through the eyes of 74 members of two organizations: Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and Young Americans for Freedom (YAF).
SDS probably looms larger in the collective memory than YAF, but Klatch's study demonstrates that both organizations have gone on to embody their ideas in the platforms and players of the two "major" parties. Many of the activists have continued to grow in political experience and influence; some have gone on Congress and the inner circles of the White House.
The most interesting parts of the book, from my perspective, cover the transformation of former activists in both groups into libertarians. Out of the wreckage of SDS, and in the wake of the 1969 purges of libertarians from YAF, came the modern libertarian movement -- the Radical Libertarian Alliance, the Society for Individual Liberty (SIL), and, ultimately, the Libertarian Party.
We're proud to call SIL -- now ISIL, the International Society for Individual Liberty -- one of our partner organizations.
Of the activists whose lives unfold in "A Generation Divided," of particular interest are Sharon Presley, co-founder of Free-Market.Net partner Laissez Faire Books, and Sheldon Richman -- former senior fellow at the Cato Institute, a Free-Market.Net partner; editor of The Freeman, published by the Foundation for Economic Education, another Free-Market.Net partner; and currently senior fellow at the Future of Freedom Foundation which is, coincidentally, one of our valued Free-Market.Net partners.
Obviously, the Sixties live on here at Free-Market.Net. Stay tuned for our famous t-shirts in the new tie dye version.
"A Generation Divided" offers tremendous insight both on the personal development of the activists, and the development, divisions and spasms that wracked the left and right throughout the Vietnam War, the rise of the counterculture, and the ultimate loss of faith in government that brought modern libertarianism into being.
From the Goldwater campaign to the riots at the 1968 Democratic convention; from the free speech movement to the splintering of YAF, it's all there from the perspective of the people who lived it.
edited by Thomas L. Knapp
June 2000: Law's Order by David Friedman
May 2000: Forge of the Elders by L. Neil Smith
April 2000: Reciprocia by Richard G. Rieben
March 2000: The Art of Fiction: A Guide for Writers and Readers by Ayn Rand
February 2000: Addiction is a Choice by Jeffrey A. Schaler
January 2000: Revolutionary Language by David C. Calderwood
Special December 1999 Feature: The Freedom Book of the Year: Send in the Waco Killers: Essays on the Freedom Movement, 1993-1998 by Vin Suprynowicz
November 1999: Conquests and Cultures by Thomas Sowell
October 1999: A Way To Be Free by Robert LeFevre, edited by Wendy McElroy
September 1999: Assassins (Left Behind) by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins
August 1999: Don't Shoot the Bastards (Yet): 101 More Ways to Salvage Freedom by Claire Wolfe
July 1999: The Mitzvah by L. Neil Smith and Aaron Zelman
June 1999: The Incredible Bread Machine by R.W. Grant
May 1999: Send in the Waco Killers by Vin Suprynowicz
April 1999: It Still Begins with Ayn Rand by Jerome Tuccille
March 1999: The Dictionary of Free-Market Economics by Fred Foldvary
February 1999: Feminist Interpretations of Ayn Rand edited by Mimi Reisel Gladstein and Chris Matthew Sciabarra
In December 2004 this page was modified significantly from its original form for archiving purposes.
, founded in 1995, is now a part of ISIL.
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