From women’s suffrage to Civil Rights for African Americans, to the environment, and the gay and lesbian liberation movement, the American Left has achieved notable successes in the 20th and 21st centuries. Sometimes celebrated and sometimes reviled, the Left has taken on many forms and reinvented itself many times over the past century.

In All-American Rebels, historian Robert C. Cottrell traces the rise and fall, ebb and flow of left-wing American movements. Following an overview of early 20th century movements, Cottrell focuses on the 1960s to today, offering readers a concise introduction and helping them to understand the political and ideological roots of the Left today. Cottrell includes chapters on the most recent versions of the American left, discussing community organizing, gay liberation, the women’s movement, the Campaign for Economic Democracy, the nuclear freeze movement, opposition to U.S. intervention in Central America, the anti-WTO campaign, Code Pink, Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, Antifa, and more. The demand for and support of democracy and the quest for empowerment in various guises unifies these different lefts to one another and to the general unfolding of American history. Cottrell argues that democratic engagement has proven inconsistent and at times outright contradictory. The Left has been most successful when it fully embraces a democratic vision.

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Cottrell offers a broad survey of the American Left’s long history from the 1900s to the Trump presidency, arguing that the movement has been most successful when it is independent and democratic. Thousands of organizations and prominent individuals are mentioned—many of which do not make the index—as part of brief descriptions of hundreds of events and manifestos. The book covers a wide range of movements from the Socialist Party to movements fighting for African American, disabled, LGBTQIA+, and women’s rights. Recommended. General readers and undergraduates.

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Robert C. Cottrell is not the first historian to survey left-wing American activists in recent decades, but he is perhaps the most ambitious and up to date. In crisp, concise prose he discusses them, and notes that they include a “wide array of movements,” relating to issues concerning “the rights of women, gays, and others in the 1970s and 1980s.” Reflecting an amazing talent for synthesis, Cottrell, the author of more than twenty books, reminds the reader of dissent’s place in American history, and provides a wonderful, informative bibliography, but no source citations or illustrations.