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| Radicalism In The Contemporary Age, Volume 1: Sources Of Contemporary Radicalism
ISBN: 9780429303692
Platform/Publisher: Taylor & Francis / Routledge
Digital rights: Users: Unlimited; Printing: Unlimited; Download: Unlimited
Subjects: Politics & International Relations; European Politics;
This volume, Sources of Contemporary Radicalism, begins with Seweryn Bialer's examination of the definitional aspects of radicalism, as well as with the identification of specific contemporary sources of the radical impulse and the social groups that are the carriers of radicalism within society. In the next two chapters, Seymour Lipset and Stanley Rothman consider the case of the United States. Lipset asks anew the question posed by Werner Sombart at the beginning of this century: "Why is there no socialism in the United States?"From the perspective of a century of literature addressed to this question, he provides his own critique and explanation.Rothman considers the relatively new phenomenon of student radicalism in the United States, and, on the basis ofinterviews with student activists and results of tests they agreed to take, he offers hypotheses concerning their psychological motivation. Sidney Tarrow's chapter presents a comparisonand contrast of the societal sources contributing to the growth of radical movements in post-World War IIFrance and Italy. Henry Landsberger, in his chapter, concentrateson one societal group, the peasantry. Landsberger addresses the methodological issue that arises in defining peasant discontent as radicalism, and examines what it is that provides a "new" dimension to peasant discontent in modern times. In the final chapter, William Overholt presents a valuable interpretative survey of the literature on radicalism.
Seweryn Bialer was born in Berlin, Germany on November 3, 1926. He was raised in Lodz, Poland. At the age of 13, he was relocated to the Jewish ghetto in Lodz. There he discovered the writings of Karl Marx and joined the Communist underground. Bialer was imprisoned at the Auschwitz and Friedland camps. After the war ended, he held posts in the Polish government and the Polish Communist Party. He received a doctorate from the Polish Academy of Sciences Institute for the Education of Scientific Cadres. In 1954, he made his first trip to the Soviet Union as part of a delegation from the Polish Communist Party. He decided to leave the system. In January 1956 while on an official trip to East Berlin, he defected to West Berlin. By June 1956, he was testifying before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee about the inner workings of the Soviet system. He spent several years as a research analyst for United States government agencies. He joined the faculty of Columbia University in 1964 and taught there for 33 years. He received a Ph.D. in political science from Columbia in 1966 with a dissertation on the Soviet political elite. He wrote several books including Stalin and His Generals: Soviet Military Memoirs of World War II; Stalin's Successors: Leadership, Stability and Change in the Soviet Union; and The Soviet Paradox: External Expansion, Internal Decline. He died from heart failure on February 8, 2019 at the age of 92. (Bowker Author Biography) |
