-1COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY

The Radical Tradition in America

Professor E. Foner

Term Paper: Each student will write a critical review-essay of around ten pages about a
book written by an American radical. The following list contains such works, including
autobiographies, political statements, and accounts of American history from a radical
perspective.
The list is not meant to be exhaustive, but if you wish to choose a book not listed, please
consult me first. The paper is due in sections during the week of April 25.
Here are some pointers regarding the paper. It is not a book report. You should
summarize the main arguments of the book you choose, but not stop there. Among other
issues, the paper should consider the purposes of the author in writing the book, his or her
political point of view, what the content and style of the book reveal about American
radicalism in the period when it was written, and the strengths and weaknesses of the
book. Ask yourself such questions as: What is the authors analysis of the problems of
American society? What kind of language does the author use? What kind of imagery?
Who appears to be the intended audience and how does the style succeed or not succeed
in terms of this aim? What values underpin the argument? What does the author think
the role of politics and the state should be? If the author has chosen to write fiction or an
autobiography, what are the strengths and weaknesses of this form in advancing the
argument? What parallels can you see between the authors arguments and other
American radicals we have studied? Not every one of these questions applies to each
book, and there are many others you could consider.
Make sure that you develop a central thesis rather than simply presenting a list of the
authors arguments. Try to avoid vague, sweeping, or overly abstract language when you
write about the authors ideas. Substantiate your insights with well-chosen quotations
from the text. There is no need to do further research to write the paper, but it is a good
idea to find out more about the author. If you consult other works for background,
context, or other information, make sure to indicate this in footnotes or a bibliography.
(And remember that not everything on Wikipedia is reliable.)
Make sure to double-space the paper, number the pages, and put footnotes or citations to
the text at the bottom of the page, not within the body of the paper. And make sure to
proofread. Sum people waist all there time will not be corrected by Spell-check.

-2Antebellum Radicals:
Frederick Douglass, Life and Time of Frederick Douglass
Margaret Fuller, Woman in the Nineteenth Century
John Humphrey Noyes, History of American Socialisms
Albert Brisbane, Social Destiny of Man
Robert Owen, A New View of Society
Henry David Thoreau, Walden
Frances Wright, Course of Popular Lectures
William Lloyd Garrison, Thoughts on African Colonization
Theodore Weld, Slavery As It Is
Sarah Grimke, Letters on the Equality of the Sexes
Martin Delany, The Condition, Elevation, Emigration of the Colored People
David Walker, Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World
Josiah Warren Equitable Commerce
Gilded Age Radicals:
Terence V. Powderly, The Path I Trod
George McNeil, The Labor Movement
Henry George, Progress and Poverty
Henry D. Lloyd, Wealth Against Commonwealth
Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, History of Woman Suffrage (abridged
edition edited by Mari Jo and Paul Buhle)
George H. Herron, The Christian Society
Frances Willard, Glimpses of Fifty Years
Friedrich Sorge, The Labor Movement in America
Ignatius Donnellly, Caesar's Column
Mary E. Lease, The Problem of Civilization Solved
Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward
Socialists, Wobblies, and Feminists, 1900-1930:
Morris Hillquist, Socialism in Theory and Practice
Jack London, The Iron Heel
Emma Goldman, Living My Life
Emma Goldman, Anarchism and Other Essays
Autobiography of Big Bill Haywood
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Women and Economics
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Herland

-3Margaret Sanger, My Fight for Birth Control

Oscar Ameringer, If You Don't Weaken
Charles E. Russell, Why I Am a Socialist
Mabel Dodge Luhan, Movers and Shakers
John Reed, Ten Days That Shook the World
Gustavus Myers, History of the Great American Fortunes
Mary H. Jones, Autobiography of Mother Jones
Abraham Cahan, The Rise of David Levinsky
Hutchins Hapgood, The Spirit of Labor
Austin Lewis, The Militant Proletariat
Frank Roney, An Autobiography
Vera Weibrod, A Radical Life
Alexander Berkman, Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist
Communists and Other Radicals, 1930-1960
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, The Rebel Girl
Kenneth Kann, Joe Rappaport: The Life of a Jewish Radical
Al Richmond, A Long View From the Left
William Z. Foster, Pages from a Worker's Life
Earl Browder, The People's Front
Wyndham Mortimer, Organize! My Life as a Union Man
Len DeCaux, Labor Radical
Jessica Mitford, A Fine Old Conflict
George Charney, A Long Journey
Anna Louise Strong, I Change Worlds
Leon Samson, Toward a United Front
Ben Gold, Memoirs
Bertram Wolfe, A Life in Two Centuries
Woody Guthrie, Bound for Glory
James P. Cannon, Notebook of an Agitator
Norman Thomas, A Socialist's Faith
Carey McWilliams, The Education of Carey McWilliams
Clancy Sigal, Going Away
Harvey O'Connor and Jesse Lloyd O'Connor, Harvey and Jesse
Norman Thomas, A Socialist's Faith
Abraham Bisno, Union Pioneer
Rose Pesotta, Bread Upon the Waters
H. L. Mitchell, Mean Things Happened in this Land

-4Black Nationalists and Black Radicals:

W. E. B. DuBois, Souls of Black Folk
Marcus Garvey, Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey
Malcolm X, Autobiography of Malcolm X
Eldridge Cleaver, Soul on Ice
Martin Luther King, Jr., Where Do We Go From Here?
Anne Moody, Coming of Age in Mississippi
Mary King, Freedom Song
Robert F. Williams, Negroes With Guns
Huey P. Newton, To Die for the People
Stokely Carmichael and Charles Hamilton, Black Power
James Forman, The Making of Black Revolutionaries
Bobby Seale, Seize the Time
Assata Shakur, Assata
David Hilliard, This Side of Glory
Elaine Brown, A Taste of Power: A Black Woman's Story
New Leftists, Feminists, and Others:
Michael Harrington, Socialism
Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals
C. Wright Mills, The Causes of World War III
Carl Oglesby, Containment and Change
Marge Piercy, Vida
Jonah Raskin, Out of the Whale
Audre Lord, A Burst of Light
hooks, bell, Feminism is for Everybody
Ellen Willis, Beginning to See the Light
Susan Stern, With the Weathermen
David Talbot and Barbara Zheutlin, Creative Differences
Sara Evans, Personal Politics
Stanley Aronowitz, Working Class Hero
Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States
David Harris, Dreams Die Hard
Jerry Rubin, Do It!
Kim Chernin, In My Mother's House
Abbie Hoffman, Revolution for the Hell of It
Marilyn Waring, If Women Counted: A New Feminist Economics

-5Bill Ayers, Fugitive Days

Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Empire
Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards, Manifesta
Barry Commoner, Making Peace With the Planet
Martin Duberman, Stonewall
Sarah Leonard and Bhaskar Sunkara, ed., The Future We Want