''Studies on the Left'' was a journal of

New Left The New Left was a broad political movement mainly in the 1960s and 1970s consisting of activists in the Western world who campaigned for a broad range of social issues such as civil and political rights, environmentalism, feminism, gay rights, g ...

radicalism in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

published between 1959 and 1967 in

Madison, Wisconsin Madison is the county seat of Dane County and the capital city of the U.S. state of Wisconsin. As of the 2020 census the population was 269,840, making it the second-largest city in Wisconsin by population, after Milwaukee, and the 80th-lar ...

, and later in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. Its authors, at first mostly graduate students at the

University of Wisconsin A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...

, came to include most of the major figures of sixties radicalism, and not only from the

. Writers for ''Studies on the Left'' included Martin J. Sklar,

Murray Rothbard Murray Newton Rothbard (; March 2, 1926 – January 7, 1995) was an American economist of the Austrian School, economic historian, political theorist, and activist. Rothbard was a central figure in the 20th-century American libertarian m ...

Lee Baxandall Lee Raymond Baxandall (January 26, 1935 – November 28, 2008) was an American writer, translator, editor, and activist. He was first known for his New Left engagement with cultural topics and then as a leader of the naturist movement. Early ...

, James Weinstein, Eleanor Hakim, Michael Lebowitz,

Ronald Radosh Ronald Radosh ( ; born 1937) is an American writer, professor, historian, and former Marxist. As he described in his memoirs, Radosh was, like his parents, a member of the Communist Party of the United States of America until the Khrushchev Thaw. ...

Gabriel Kolko Gabriel Morris Kolko (August 17, 1932 – May 19, 2014) was an American historian. His research interests included American capitalism and political history, the Progressive Era, and U.S. foreign policy in the 20th century. One of the best-known ...

, James B. Gilbert,

Saul Landau Saul Landau (January 15, 1936 – September 9, 2013) was an American journalist, filmmaker and commentator. He was also a professor emeritus at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, where he taught history and digital media. Educa ...

Lloyd Gardner Lloyd C. Gardner (born 1934) is an American historian, a member of the " Wisconsin School" of diplomatic history along with Walter LaFeber and Thomas J. McCormick. He was educated at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Gardner was the Charles ...

Eugene D. Genovese Eugene Dominic Genovese (May 19, 1930 – September 26, 2012) was an American historian of the American South and American slavery. He was noted for bringing a Marxist perspective to the study of power, class and relations between planters and s ...

Norman Fruchter Norman Fruchter (August 11, 1937 – January 4, 2023) was an American writer, filmmaker, and academic. Life and career Fruchter was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on August 11, 1937. He graduated from Rutgers University, in 1959, where he e ...

Staughton Lynd Staughton Craig Lynd (November 22, 1929 – November 17, 2022) was an American political activist, author, and lawyer.Staughton Lynd, ''Living Inside Our Hope: A Steadfast Radical's Thoughts on Rebuilding the Movement,'' Cornell University Pres ...

, Ronald Aronson,

William Appleman Williams William Appleman Williams (June 12, 1921 – March 5, 1990) was one of the 20th century's most prominent revisionist historians of American diplomacy. He achieved the height of his influence while on the faculty of the department of history at t ...

Raymond Williams Raymond Henry Williams (31 August 1921 – 26 January 1988) was a Welsh socialist writer, academic, novelist and critic influential within the New Left and in wider culture. His writings on politics, culture, the media and literature contribu ...

, and

Tom Hayden Thomas Emmet Hayden (December 11, 1939October 23, 2016) was an American social and political activist, author, and politician. Hayden was best known for his role as an anti-war, civil rights, and intellectual activist in the 1960s, authoring th ...

. The journal's republication of

C. Wright Mills Charles Wright Mills (August 28, 1916 – March 20, 1962) was an American Sociology, sociologist, and a professor of sociology at Columbia University from 1946 until his death in 1962. Mills published widely in both popular and intellectual journ ...

' "Letter to the New Left" in 1961 (originally published in ''

New Left Review The ''New Left Review'' is a British bimonthly journal covering world politics, economy, and culture, which was established in 1960. History Background As part of the British "New Left" a number of new journals emerged to carry commentary on m ...

'' in 1960)Available online.
/ref> marked one of the first uses of the "New Left" in American discourse. The journal's chief claim to theoretical distinction was in the concept of "

corporate liberalism Corporate liberalism is a thesis in United States historiography and a tool for its open door imperialism in which the corporate elite become "both the chief beneficiaries of and the chief lobbyists for the supposedly anti-business regulations". The ...

" as a descriptive term for the twentieth-century economic and political system typified by the

and characterized by a warfare-welfare state. The journal advocated a

socialism Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the e ...

distinct from the variant then found in the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

, and was important in the rebirth of a critical intellectual life in the 1960s after the

McCarthyism McCarthyism is the practice of making false or unfounded accusations of subversion and treason, especially when related to anarchism, communism and socialism, and especially when done in a public and attention-grabbing manner. The term origin ...

of the 1950s. It was succeeded, under the editorial guidance of James Weinstein, by ''

Socialist Revolution Revolutionary socialism is a political philosophy, doctrine, and tradition within socialism that stresses the idea that a social revolution is necessary to bring about structural changes in society. More specifically, it is the view that revoluti ...

'' and then by ''

Socialist Review The ''Socialist Review'' is a monthly magazine of the British Socialist Workers Party. As well as being printed it is also published online. Original publication: 1950–1962 The ''Socialist Review'' was set up in 1950 as the main publication o ...

''.

Footnotes

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Footnotes

Further reading