Fragments of the Century

About this book

s/t: A Personal & Social Retrospective of the 50s & 60sBack at Holy Cross College Michael Harrington--born in '28 into a middle class St Louis Irish Catholic family--learned the underlying principles of his life: that ideas have consequences, that knowledge is related to ethical values, that philosophy is the continuing debate over humanity's most significant issues. One of those rare leftists who can use the epithet "comrade" & imbue it with dignity & meaning, he's been on the barricades of all progressive battles of the past two decades, in coalition or in bitter confrontation with every important movement--racial, economic, student, labor, Old Left, New Left, Trotskyist, Stalinist etc--throughout the country. In an autobiography purposely fragmented to reflect that history of the times more than of the man--hence distinct separations for politics, bohemia, emotional breakdown, religion when one wishes he'd let it all flow--he emerges in myriad contradictions: politically aware yet with a primitive Xian sense of mission, an atheist who mourns the death of god, Jesuitical, heretical, radical, but always as a dedicated Socialist who, contrary to popular myth, instead of blowing up post offices, has never stopped building bridges even tho, as in the early 70s, there's little hope they'll hold.--Kirkus (edited)