Book Review

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Book Review | The Journal of American History, 86.2 | The History Cooperative

The Politics of Authenticity: Liberalism, Christianity, and the New Left in America. By Doug Rossinow. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998. x, 500 pp. $32.50, isbn 0-231-11056-1.)

It has become a commonplace among younger historians that earlier accounts of the New Left, including this reviewer's, emphasized national ("elite") developments to the detriment of local histories. Though history writing naturally begins with the most visible and/or influential of dynamics, surely local histories also matter greatly. Differences among localities have too often been lost in the effort to summon grand explanations of huge phenomena. Moreover, larger dynamics are often most clearly revealed in their particularities, like stained cells. Details and conflicts can be rendered most vividly on a manageable terrain. The best local studies are more than local. . . .

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