Isserman, Maurice, If I had a Hammer: The Death of the Old Left and the Birth of the New Left. Basic Books, 1987.

== Summary ==
Maurice
Isserman’s If I Had a Hammer illuminates
the historical roots of the New Left and establishes a link between the Old
Left and the New. This book looks at the American Communist Party, the various
groups led by Max Shachtman, the journal Dissent
and the committee for non-violent action and to what event each influenced
or failed to influence the New Left. Isserman argues that the New Left that
came to be ultimately concluded that “it should represent something very
different from what came before it.” (xvi) Echoing what James Miller would
similarly ague in his later book, Democracy
in the Streets, Isserman writes: When the New Left did appear, the young
people that did get involved believed that “they were different, that their
elders had compromised themselves, and that honesty, openness, and moral
intensity would prevent them from repeating the mistakes of the past. As it
turned out, honesty, openness, and moral intensity were not enough.” The
political climate that came to define the 1960s was a result, according to
Isserman, of these factors: baby boom, expansion of higher education, redistribution
of the black population from the rural south to the urban north, and the
general prosperity of the 1960s that encouraged politicians to consider the
plight of the “other America.” Isserman thus contends that the “Veterans of the
radical movements of the 1950s provided a political language in which those
swept up in the new movements of the 1960s could begin to make sense of their
own discontents and desires.” (xvii) Ultimately, the New Left did learned from
the mistakes of the Old Left (absolutism, idealization of class politics,
excessive sectarianism, distaste for ideology and rigid centralization). But,
it also failed to learn other important lessons: “the need for a patient,
long-term approach to building movements; an emphasis upon the value of winning
small victories as part of a strategy preparing the way for larger ones; a
willingness to work with others with differing viewpoints around limited goals;
a commitment to internal political education,” and an understanding of the need
for political/representative organizational structure.