Never Stop Running: Allard Lowenstein And American Liberal Activism. This item is unavailable.Never Stop Running: Allard Lowenstein And American Liberal Activism

This volume is both a chronicle of liberalism at the barricades, and a saga of a man desperately seeking peace in an interior world haunted by secret and forbidden desires. Allard Lowenstein's rise and fall in the 1960s and 70s made him emblematic of liberalism's strange fate in post-war America. He was at the forefront of the fight against racism and the Vietnam War at a time when liberalism came under attack from both radicals and conservatives. Without Lowenstein, Mississippi's "Freedom Summer" and the "Dump Johnson" movement could never have happened the way they did. Chronically insecure about his appearance, his Jewishness and his sexual urges toward young men, Lowenstein compulsively sought the approval of the beautiful and the gentile, and the companionship of a bevy of "best friends". In both his political and personal lives, staying in motion - "never stop running" - became a metaphor for his struggle to escape his demons - right up to his tragic assassination by one of his "best friends". William Chafe is the author of "The American Woman" and "The Unfinished Journey".

"In William H. Chafe's fascinating new political and psychological biography ... Lowenstein comes to life again as a Pied Piper for the young and idealistic and as a man who passionately believed in the possibility of reforming the system without tearing it apart."--Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, The New York Times

"The real contribution of this book is to make the turbulent youth politics of the Vietnam and civil-rights era much more comprehensible. It is an adoring, yet critical, portrait of a dedicated, brilliant young man who helped reshape American liberalism."--Sol Stern, Newsday