50 Years of Dissent

02 Dissent was founded in 1954 by intellectuals angered by the rightward drift of the country but uneasy with the dogmatism they saw on the American left, and it has provoked debates about political ideas and about American and global issues ever since. This provocative book—a collection of articles published in Dissent over the past fifty years—presents essays from each decade of Dissent’s life that reveal how the magazine viewed that era, along with a new foreword to each section written by a contemporary Dissenter that provides perspective on the period.Articles include:* Norman Mailer on “Surplus Values and Mass Media”* Irving Howe on “New Styles in Leftism”* Theodore Draper on “Ghosts of Vietnam”* Sean Wilentz on “Bankruptcy and Zeal”* Michael Kazin on “A Patriotic Left”* Dwight MacDonald on “America, America”* and much more“I find these essays impressive not only in their quality but also in their surprising relevance to political life today.”—Robert Dahl, author of How Democratic Is the American Constitution?
Dissent was founded in 1954 by intellectuals angered by the rightward drift of the country but uneasy with the dogmatism they saw on the American left, and it has provoked debates about political ideas and about American and global issues ever since. This provocative book—a collection of articles published in Dissent over the past fifty years—presents essays from each decade of Dissent’s life that reveal how the magazine viewed that era, along with a new foreword to each section written by a contemporary Dissenter that provides perspective on the period.Articles include:* Norman Mailer on “Surplus Values and Mass Media”* Irving Howe on “New Styles in Leftism”* Theodore Draper on “Ghosts of Vietnam”* Sean Wilentz on “Bankruptcy and Zeal”* Michael Kazin on “A Patriotic Left”* Dwight MacDonald on “America, America”* and much more“I find these essays impressive not only in their quality but also in their surprising relevance to political life today.”—Robert Dahl, author of How Democratic Is the American Constitution?

Nicolaus Mills is a professor of American Studies at Sarah Lawrence College. His books include The Crowd in American Literature, Like a Holy Crusade: Mississippi 1964, The Triumph of Meanness: America’s War Against its Better Self, and Their Last Battle: The Fight for the National World War II Memorial. He lives in New York City.